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Unemployment:  WTF? Unchanged???

OK, here's the deal - hot of the Labor Dept. website:

"Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 131,000 in July, and the unem- ployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Federal government employment fell, as 143,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sector payroll employment edged up by 71,000.

Household Survey Data

Both the number of unemployed persons, at 14.6 million, and the unemployment rate, at 9.5 percent, were unchanged in July. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (9.7 per- cent), adult women (7.9 percent), teenagers (26.1 percent), whites (8.6 per- cent), blacks (15.6 percent), and Hispanics (12.1 percent) showed little or no change in July. The jobless rate for Asians was 8.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

In July, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was little changed at 6.6 million. These individuals made up 44.9 per- cent of unemployed persons. (See table A-12.)

The civilian labor force participation rate (64.6 percent) and the employment- population ratio (58.4 percent) were essentially unchanged in July; however, these measures have declined by 0.6 percentage point and 0.4 point, respectively, since April. (See table A-1.)

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes re- ferred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged over the month at 8.5 million but has declined by 623,000 since April. These in- dividuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See table A-8.)

About 2.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in July, an increase of 340,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were avail- able for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.2 million discouraged workers in July, up by 389,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally ad- justed.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.4 million persons marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

As long as the workforce number is being reduced, it keeps the unemployment figures in check.  However, the real number to look at is the labor participation rate.  In April it was 65.2% and now its down to 64.6%.

  That's how you lose 131,000 jobs and hold the rate steady...only change the participation rate a tenth for the month...

 

The CES Birth/Death Model also shows declines in new/small business/estimated job creation.  Last month 147,000 new jobs were estimated into existence.  This month:  Just 6,000 with another 12,000 lost in manufacturing and 9-thousand each in Financial activities and the Trade Transportation and utilities group.

 

On a Not Seasonally Adjusted basis,  the Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization figure was up another tenth to 16.8% of the workforce.  Same place we were a year ago.

 

Feedback: "George, did you mention that the June Jobs report was revised majorly downward to -221K, from -125K? eom"  No, wouldn't want to complete f/u the weekend.

 

Predictably, the futures point down.  But it gets worse...

 

How Gov't Screws Job-Seekers

As long as we're talking about the job collapse, reading InformationWeek may not be on your list of sites to scan for economic news, but a fine case of screwing up the recovery is being presented by the federal government and what the article refers to as a 'hand-picked Obama appointee" as the (got a blood pressure pill handy?) "U.S. to Train 3,000 Offshore IT Workers".

 

What's worse?  On Thursday InformationWeek did a follow-on story about how "USAID Funds IT in Eurasia".

 

If you're an unemployed American IT wizard, and you're asking "WTF is wrong with these people in Washington?  Don't they know we have a serious unemployment problem right here in America?", I'd have to point out that America isn't what it used to be.

 

Seems to me that when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said this week...

"The President has proposed to terminate or reduce government programs we do not need and cannot afford. He has proposed to freeze non-security, discretionary spending, which will by 2014 bring such spending to its lowest share of the economy since the 1960s.... "

...he could  have mentioned that cutting government spending by outsourcing was in the plan somewhere.

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No, I'm not picking on Obama; the reason all presidents have been acting the same, regardless of party, is that corporate strings pull both parties.  Obama is just the latest marionette; Bush the preceding puppet. Campaign promises to withdraw from Iraq?  Create new jobs and industries?  And what about that surveillance promise?  Bush was of the same ilk, same wars, same.....well,  you get the idea.

 

Ever since the Kennedy days (at least that's a good point of transition to consider, since he was killed with a move to begin taking back direct government control of money from the Federal Reserve pending under Executive Order 11110)) we have done a smooth transition from government "by, of, and for the people" to a government "by, for, and of corporation interests in general and their bankers in particular.  Need a few more zeroes on your bailout?"

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But what's the use?  We're probably past the point of no return, although I'll still vote against every incumbent I can in November.  The hard part isn't the voting, it's the remembering that the corporate agenda is to keep voters believing in left-right divisions so the up/down manipulation and exploitation can profitably (to the few) continue. 

 

Besides, we really do need more IT outsourcing to South Asia, and Armenia, don't we?  I mean, how else could American corporate interests keep cutting jobs, right?  And what better way to cut federal costs than to outsource them to South Asia and Armenia?

 

Hell, I'm so old I can remember when my job competitor was the human standing next to me...not a piece of software or some faceless corpslave in an Asian prison sweat shop.  Now that's old.

 

ViceGrips (to pinch yourself) and a Bic lighter (for your vaporizer) only go so far.

 

With America facing massive unemployment - and by my reckoning, more to come - how is it we need foreign aid programs, in the first place?

 

Bad Idea On Housing

Word this week that fixed-rate mortgages hit record lows prompted an ugly trial-balloon to be launched by the Obamanistas:  Idea tossed around Washington was "What about forgiving $800 billion in Freddie and Fannie home loans?"

 

So visceral was my reaction that I called my lawyer/consigliore and asked him "What's it gonna cost to file a class action lawsuit on behalf of people who have a) no mortgage, b) renters, and c) people who didn't cross the moral hazard line and lived within their means?  It's a crock of crap and a clear violation of equal protection to give one class of citizens a loan forgiveness windfall at the expense of the rest of us, right?"

 

His answer was instructive:

"You can't afford it, George.  It will cost at least $2-million dollars to challenge an idea as bad as this, even though it's an easy call and load of crap on the surface.  I'd need to hire researchers, spend hundreds - maybe thousands - of hours in research, hire expert opinions - and that's expensive, I've done it before - and frankly, you're pockets aren't that deep..."

Crap.  So I tried to tempt him in other way: "Could you do it on a contingent basis for part of the settlement, triple damages, and such?

"Nope.  Not interested."

In end, someone in Treasury apparently had the good sense to announce there won't be any change of Treasury policy about Freddie and Fannie.

 

But is that the end of it?  Hell no:  The Democorps are facing disaster at the polls in November which is probably why the week after elections is when the Middle East will blow up.  Lame ducks can do anything they want - or so they think.

 

Global Food Crisis, Commodities, War

Did the linguistics, or did the linguistics not tell you that food was going to go ballistic late this year.  And is not word that Russian Prime Minister and his marionette president what's-his-name have banned export of grains from Russia because of severe drought and failing crops.

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Which brings us to a couple of commodities to watch:  Wheat prices are rising and so is copper.  Copper's a worry because it usually goes up ahead of major wars.

 

March To War Dept.

Shortly after Elaine was wandered around the house yesterday muttering about how stupid killing people over tree trimming along the Lebanese-Israel border was when this popped in: "Chinese missile could shift Pacific power balance."

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While the rumor mill buzzes that Wikileaks may have a follow-on posting around August 10th only dealing with Iran War plans, the recent Ugly Truth article "assembling the evidence for high likelihood of coming third world war" is worth some study.

 

Or, you might want to chat with Shane over at www.ki4u.com about radiation detectors and potassium iodide pills....

 

Speaking of which, Shane sent me his review of the new documentary "Countdown to Zero" which also builds the case that some kind of nuke use is increasingly likely...

No surprise the new 'Countdown to Zero' disarmament movie omits any life-saving strategies from their agenda of banning nukes, like advocating public Civil Defense, to try and better survive nukes in the meantime.

The disarmament movement has for decades espoused that with nukes; all will die or it will be so bad you'll wish you had. They've largely succeeded, as most now think it futile, bordering on lunacy, to ever try to learn how to survive a nuclear blast and radioactive fallout.

Ironically, these disarmament activists have rendered millions more American families more vulnerable to perishing from nukes in the future.

For instance, most now ridicule 'duck & cover', but for the vast majority, not right at 'ground zero' and already gone, the blast wave will be delayed in arriving after the flash, like lightening & thunder, anywhere from a fraction of a second up to 20 seconds, or more.

Today, without 'duck & cover' training, everyone at work, home, and your children at school, will impulsively rush to the nearest windows to see what that 'bright flash' was, just-in-time to be shredded by the glass imploding inward from that delayed blast wave. They'd never been taught that even in the open, just laying flat, reduces by eight-fold the chances of being hit by debris from that brief, 3-second, tornado strength blast.

Then, later, before the radioactive fallout can hurt them, most won't know to move perpendicular away from the downwind drift of the fallout to get out from under it before it even arrives. And, for those who can't evacuate in time, few know how quick & easy it is to throw together an expedient fallout shelter, to safely wait out the radioactive fallout as it loses 99% of its lethal intensity in the first 48 hours.

The greatest tragedy of that horrific loss of life, when nukes come to America, will be that most families had needlessly perished, out of ignorance of how easily they might have avoided becoming additional casualties, all because they were sold it was futile to ever try to learn how to beforehand.

You can thank the disarmament movement, and all those who've uncritically parroted their un-survivability propaganda, for these unintended consequences and inconvenient truths.

"The Good News About Nuclear Destruction!" at www.ki4u.com/goodnews.htm dispels those deadly myths of nuclear un-survivability to empower more American families to survive nukes. For as long as any nukes are still around, THAT is what's urgently needed!

Shane Connor
www.ki4u.com

I assume you have been following H.R. 5741 which sets up the draft, again, right?  Oh-oh...sorry...I meant mandatory service.  The kinder, gentler term for pushing through a draft law...just in time for expanded global wars.

 

(SFX: sound of a lighter and large inhaling sound, a moment of silence then this:)

 

"Yee haw!  What have I been thinking?  Where's my Triple Bull ETF in the Defense Sector?  Lemme in!  Global War!  The world's last growth industry!!!"

 

Losses Going Postal

Press release out Thursday:

"The U.S. Postal Service ended the third quarter of fiscal year 2010 (April 1 – June 30) with a net loss of $3.5 billion, compared with a net loss of $2.4 billion for the same quarter last year. Third-quarter mail volume totaled 40.9 billion pieces – down approximately 700 million pieces, or 1.7 percent, compared to a year ago.

Complete USPS third-quarter results include operating revenue of $16 billion, some $294 million less than the same period last year, and operating expenses of $19.5 billion, an increase of $789 million, or 4.2 percent, over the third quarter last year.

The increase in operating expenses was attributable largely to higher workers’ compensation expenses due to a non-cash fair value adjustment and higher retiree health benefits expenses. Lower interest rates adversely affected the workers’ compensation liability, resulting in a $2 billion expense for the quarter – $870 million higher than the same quarter last year.

A significant portion of USPS losses in the past few years has been due to an unprecedented decline in mail volume – down by more than 20 percent since 2007. The replacement of letter mail and business-transactions mail by electronic alternatives continues to cause downward pressure on mail volume.

The organization’s financial situation is compounded by its obligation to pay $5.4 billion to $5.8 billion annually to prefund retiree health benefits. This requirement, established in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA), is an obligation unique to the Postal Service.

Liquidity remains a major concern as the end of the fiscal year approaches. Although cash flow appears to be sufficient for 2010 operations, it is uncertain whether cash flow, together with maximum available borrowing of $3 billion, will be enough to fund the Congressionally-mandated $5.5 billion payment to the Retiree Health Benefit Fund on September 30 and retain sufficient liquidity into 2011, according to Joseph R. Corbett, the Postal Service’s Chief Financial Officer."

Speaking of layoffs (which is the theme-o-the-day around here), the post office cut the equivalent of 36,000 FTE's last year.

 

Way out?  Scrap Saturday deliveries always comes up, but here's my 2¢ worth:  Have the Post Office take over all email services in America and charge 1¢ per email.  That would free up a lot of bandwidth, reduce mindless spam, make the Post Office solvent - and best of all - since Post Inspectors can search mail, it would make government reading of email a hell of a lot easier is they took over the whole function, right?  I mean they can open regular mail, so why not make them the email outfit...

 

Quake Watch

Still looking fort a Big 'un...so are readers:

"Wow,  Similar pattern of quakes seen right before the Haiti quake. Could be a south usa or California, but betting on Caribbean quake. Aug 9th??   That is where my dart is lands."

Keep the USGS site bookmarked...might be useful this weekend.

 

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Coping: With Point #6

In Thursday's column I mentioned that in a press conference this week, the who's-he-was-its of the Centers for Disease Control talked about six things people can do about obesity and then listed five which got me to wonder about #6...

 

Best note from a reader on point was this one:

"Good morning, George. I was intrigued by your discourse on obesity, so I cheerfully provide an answer to your question. I have a history of adult obesity and lifelong mocking - including from family!!, which I state quite boldly because I know my eating habits and exercise regimen were not the problem (cue rude sniggering from peanut gallery). You note I state "were ..." because about a year ago I finally stumbled upon a solution. I'll try to be brief, but when you finish, hopefully you'll understand why the lengthy note.

Some history: I'm a 44yo female, and my weight gain started at puberty for seemingly no reason. My four siblings (2m/2f) carried on merrily, not one of whom 'grew' at the rate I did over the years. We all ate the same foods and were exposed to the same family whatevers, but over the years I continued to 'grow' and ultimately develop various infirmities which worsened as my weight increased.

Yes, I dieted - a number of times I lost 25-30 pounds without permanent results; yes, I took nutrition classes - including at college; I have two beautiful, useful veggie gardens in the backyard; yes, I exercised - a gym member and aerobics enthusiast for many years, until a severe wrench in my knee a couple of years ago, which actually resulted in an arthritis diagnosis following months of physio. Small mercy to know, I suppose, but I digress ...

Ultimately, my lifelong quest has been to determine why I am so overweight and how to stop it - so I can tell you exactly how my body functions, when and why; I can talk nutrition and diet with the best gurus; and I can give exercise tips that Tony Horton would envy. I have fitness videos and dvds up the ying-yang, can do a 20 Minute Workout with my eyes closed, and have a (well-used) Bowflex in the basement. So WHY couldn't I lose weight???

Two years ago, my DH was told he had high cholesterol. Being a health fiend, I went online to research options. Preferring 'natural' remedies, I ended up at an organic grocer for a very specific product and not wanting to trek all over the city for groceries every week, I would pick up a few items while I was there. A bit expensive - no kidding - but after two weeks, hubby looks at me and says (and I paraphrase) "Y'know, it's not me feeling better - it's you!" And he was right.

The ultimate point is, we switched to organic food over the next year and haven't looked back since. We have since researched less-expensive grocers, sourced near-ish farms for various meats, bought a freezer to store the annual deliveries (ooooh ... organic bacon!!!), changed garden fertilizers, spices, dairy, fruits, veggies, snacks and treats, EVERYTHING!!! And for the first time ever, I lost 15 lbs in the following few weeks without changing the way I cook or eat, other than to switch from 'conventional' foods to strictly organic.

So I checked in with my doctor about a year after the change-over, she asks a few questions, and voila - I have "21st Century Syndrome" or something odd like that. Basically, I'm intolerant to chemicals in food. I have ultimately come to realize that via purported standardization, safety restrictions and regulation of farming and food preparation, we are being poisoned by the PTB through GMO foods, pesticides, additives, preservatives, etc. Because I am hyper-sensitive to chemicals (not everyone is as sensitive, obviously), the growth hormones injected into cattle, chicken, etc. were being retained by my body and causing me to literally grow. I felt drugged constantly, 'foggy', lethargic - not tired or fatigued, but weak and debilitated. And I was 'puffy', like a toasted marshmallow. And now it's all gone ... finally!!!

While Hubby noticed my dramatic results, he didn't really see a change in himself except for one thing ('gross' alert!): Following the same dietary patterns, I used to experience regular diarrhea, but he was regularly constipated - almost immediately after switching to organics, both of us changed to a normal rhythm. Niice. ;-p

Now, we would normally question the validity of all of the above because if we hadn't experienced it ourselves, we almost wouldn't believe it. However, we are totally sold on this, especially since my experiencing and hubby seeing my clarity of body, mind and general well-being. No, not everyone will believe it, and many will poo-poo it as 'another fat person with an excuse', but since the initial drop I have lost a further 50 lbs and I'm still going! People walk by me and actually don't recognize me. I feel so great, but it's not excitement - it's relief - my journey is almost over, and I feel normal for the first time in my life.

Anyway, I'll stop now. Sorry to have talked your ears (or eyes?) off, but thanks for the opportunity. :-) That is your 'sixth thing'."

So I wrote back to the woman:  "Wow – one follow-on question”:  How many pounds do you figure you lost in this?  (no names used on the site, as always, but I’m sure people would want to know…??)"

"Thanks - it's been quite a journey, and if nothing else, an interesting lesson in human nature - people are very cruel, and family can be especially so.

The initial numbers are a rough estimate (I was so discouraged at my highest that I actually stopped weighing myself in the high 290s) but at this point I'm probably down 65 lbs, give or take maybe 2 lbs or so. I have always been very self-aware, so my guesstimate is probably pretty close.

I have also maintained regular medical check-ups for my own peace of mind, and thankfully all of my blood pressure, sugars, cholesterol, thyroid, etc. have always been normal. However, I have opted for a specialist to supervise the rest of the weight loss, to ensure it's safe and quick. His initial weigh-in had me at 286.5, but I had lost what I figure was near 15 lbs prior to that. I would like to lose another 90-95 lbs (just to see what it looks like!), which will take me down to between 140 and 150, the latter being the high end for my age/height range and his ultimate goal for me.

I work in Toronto, Ontario - check out Dr. Poon online. He's not really well known outside of the medical community, but all the doctors know him as the go-to guy for obese patients who need surgery - which is why I didn't know him ... notwithstanding the weight, I have always been completely healthy."

Something to think about, especially because I've known many people who just can't seem to lose weight (long-term) even those they put themselves on the Bataan Death March Diet and whatever this week's fad is.  Hadn't thought about the weight issue as being an allergic reaction to processed foods, but a quick inspection of almost anything in a grocery store not specifically marked 'organic' makes the case air tight, and even markings may not tell the whole story.

 

So, if you're one of those folks who just can't seem to lose weight, I'm no doctor (and you should get medical advice!) at least start reading up on the food purity/high fructose corn syrup relationship.  Wikipedia offers some insight into recent research in the field:

"Critics of HFCS point out a correlation between increased usage of HFCS in foods and obesity rates in the United States over three decades.[40] Some allege that HFCS is in itself more detrimental to health than table sugar (sucrose); others claim that the low cost of HFCS encourages overconsumption of sugars. The Corn Refiners Association has launched an aggressive advertising campaign to counter these criticisms, claiming that high-fructose corn syrup "is natural" and "has the same natural sweeteners as table sugar".[41] Both sides point to studies in peer reviewed journals that allegedly support their point of view.

 

Bocarsly et al.[42][40][43] completed a 2010 study where rats were given 8% HFCS 12 hrs/day, 8% HFCS 24 hrs/day, 10% sucrose 12 hrs/day, all with ad libitum rodent chow, or only ad libitum rodent chow for a duration of 8 weeks. The rats on HFCS 12 hrs/day gained more weight than the rats on sucrose 12 hrs/day in young males, but not in adult females. They also reported that the rats on HFCS 24 hrs/day did not gain a statistically significant amount of weight when compared to the rats on sucrose or chow only. Additionally, no differences in blood-glucose levels were observed. Another study was conducted for 6-7 months, and fat pads were removed from the rats and weighed. Fat pads for rats on HFCS 12 hrs/day weighed significantly more than rats on chow only, but were not different from rats on sucrose. Fat pads for rats on HFCS 24 hrs/day did not have a statistically different weight than rats on chow only.[44]

 

Elliot et al.[45] implicate increased consumption of fructose (due primarily to the increased consumption of sugars but also partly due to the slightly higher fructose content of HFCS as compared to sucrose) in obesity and insulin resistance. Chi-Tang Ho et al. found that soft drinks sweetened with HFCS are up to 10 times richer in harmful carbonyl compounds, such as methylglyoxal, than a diet soft drink control, and claimed that sucrose does not have the same tendency to produce these compounds.[46] Carbonyl compounds are elevated in people with diabetes and are blamed for causing diabetic complications such as foot ulcers and eye and nerve damage.[47][48]

A 2008 study in humans analyzed the circulating levels of glucose, insulin, leptin, ghrelin, and triacylglycerol during a 24 hour period after consuming drinks containing HFCS or sucrose. The researchers concluded that the consumption of HFCS or sucrose did not yield differing metabolic effects.^[49]

(Cites won't work, but may be found here if you want the back-up).

 

Have we found the "missing" 6th point from CDC?  Perhaps:  One thing I'm pretty confident of:  Anyone in a politically sensitive job would be endangering their in come if they took on the corn lobby.

 

This is - fortunately - one of those things where people voting with the wallets may be able to change behaviors.  If people only consumed natural sweets (fruit juices and such) and made it a point to stop consuming high fructose corn syrup-laced products and those with any number of preservatives in them, would industry find a new way to use those products, or would farmers have an incentive to shy away from genetically-modified plantings?  Of course!

 

Won't happen overnight, at least a scan of the headlines suggests it didn't happen last night, but every time you spend a buck, remember you're voting yay, or nay, in the only contest corporate boards of directors really understand - the bottom line.

 

I'm  still trying to sell myself on the benefits of a restricted calorie diet [CR] since elsewhere we read that while human studies are ongoing...

"It was found that the calorie-restricted group had remarkably low triglyceride levels. In fact, they were as low as the lowest 5% of Americans in their 20s. This is more remarkable when it is noted that the calorie-restricted individuals were actually aged between 35 and 82 years. Both systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels in calorie-restricted group were remarkably low, about 100/60, values normally found in 10-year-old children. Fasting plasma insulin concentration was 65% lower and fasting plasma glucose concentration was also significantly lower in the calorie-restricted group when compared with the comparison group." Dr. Luigi Fontana, clinical investigator, says CR practitioners seem to be aging more slowly than the rest of us. "Take systolic blood pressure," he says. "Usually, that rises with age reliably, partly because the arteries are hardening. In my group, mean age is 55, and mean systolic blood pressure is 110: that’s at the level of a 20-year-old."

The comparison group's statistics aligned approximately with the US national average on the dimensions considered.[7] Fasting plasma insulin levels[8] and fasting plasma glucose levels[9] are used as tests to predict diabetes."

I read elsewhere that the life-extension possible may be as high as 30-40%, which means if your parents lived to 85, a CR diet might get someone close to 120-years.

 

Of course, whether being around 120-years is a good thing, or bad, depends on a lot of variables:  Since I'm already 61 (and 62 sure seems to be coming down the pike quickly) I have to ask "Do I want to keep paying taxes another X number of years?  And what will my quality of life be like from, say, 105-119?  And if a lot of people did this, wouldn't that screw the younger up-and-coming generations out of upward mobility for a long time?

 

Tough decisions, these.  But the journey of a thousand leagues begins with a first step.  I'll pass on corn syrup products, which I've been doing any way...and we'll continue to make our own organic meals.

 

More important? I'll skip lunch today, or just have a salad.

 

Reader Are Thinking

Here's proof:

"In arts and entertainment:* Wall Street (1929 film), directed by Roy William Neill* Wall Street (1987 film), directed by Oliver Stone o Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, a 2010 film sequel to the above, directed by Oliver Stone"

 

I wonder if there is any particular cosmic reason why the movie "Wall Street" comes out during financial crashes?

Like the power behind a number of Hollywood biggies told one of our sources: "The movie is the message..."

 

Video of the Day

...or for the weekend...Remember a while back I told you about the efforts of a Hebrew studies group in Canada to apply something called "self-defining Hebrew (SDH) to the old testament?  Idea is that the ancient words had only one meaning, not over 90-odd meanings for some, which you could find in Strong's Concordance...

 

Anyway, they have a video up on YouTube now and their site, www.thechronicleproject.org continues to grow with more pages added...

 

A related reader email:

"Hi George, The story of the meeting of Ike, Rockefeller and others with the Greys speaks of agreement to keep their presence deniable to maintain the hold the major religions have on the world. Would shake up all if it were announced, "The story of Yeshua ben Joseph, video at 11." Just the sight of the races of ET's will bring our ancestry to question."

uh...you might want to check out the SDH version of Genesis...

 

 

Send your comments to george@ure.net

 

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Reader Action Department:

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"Live on $10,000" A Year

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Pass It On

A different take on things - that's what you'll find here most mornings.  If you know of anyone who might also like our content, simply click here and send a link to them.  Or, if you hated what you read, send the link to all your 'worst enemies'.  Like they say in Burbank, "Ain't no such thing as bad press..."

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Last week's report is always here

 

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Thursday August 5, 2010

Changing Expense Ratios

One of the things hidden in the study of longwave economics is the major changes which happen to people's spending patterns over time, when macroeconomic changes happen to societies in general.  These changes - o0nly evident if you kmeep a kind of ledger on them - result in tremendous confusion over the general direction of the economy, especially when we're in a Second Depression by many practical measures.

 

To say that inflation is coming for food costs seems obvious.  No doubt you've noticed the Bloomberg story that "Wheat hits 23-month high as drought shrivels Russian crop"?  I'm sure you also recall that a few weeks back I ordered a cheap 10X12-foot greenhouse to keep some local food production going over the winter?  And, let's not forget my near-constant nagging a while back about how you ought to be thinking about planter ranching and condo containering in order to augment your food in the future, even if you're just renting space.

 

We won't get the Consumer Price Index numbers until a week from tomorrow, but I expect the food and beverage section will come off dead flat the past couple of months and begin heading higher.

 

Couple this with the reported canceling of Flip That House (TLC) after four seasons and the astute observer might summarize the macro trend this way:  Housing costs are going down, but compensating, food prices seem likely to head up.  Overall, deflationary, since borrowing is expected to show another decline when the Fed comes out with Consumer Debt figures tomorrow, but for today, the market has other news to digest.

 

One of the immediate concerns is the weekly unemployment data:

In the week ending July 31, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 479,000, an increase of 19,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 460,000. The 4-week moving average was 458,500, an increase of 5,250 from the previous week's revised average of 453,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.6 percent for the week ending July 24, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate of 3.6 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending July 24 was 4,537,000, a decrease of 34,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 4,571,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,575,500, an increase of 25,750 from the preceding week's revised average of 4,549,750.

The fiscal year-to-date average of seasonally adjusted weekly insured unemployment, which corresponds to the appropriated AWIU trigger, was 5.028 million.

Gold is touching the $1,200 level again, so some inflation (or solid purchasing power holding) is seen there, and futures are up a tad, but not enough to show any definitive direction longer term than the next day, and maybe even a late-session reversal today could be in the cards.  Tomorrow, the unemployment rate is due and it's expected to be up a bit - how much depends on whether Pinocchio (whose unemployment benefits ran out years ago) has landed a gig in the right government statistics department.

 

Road To War

Russia Today is reporting no, Belarus has not sold any S-300 aid defense system missiles to Iran.  Apparently, if you dig a bit, you can find mention that Iran paid for these missiles back in 2007 but now Russia isn't delivering.

 

On the other hand, the FARS news agency apparently reported that "Iran obtains S-300" missiles (four of 'em), so it's anyone's guess who's got the straight skinny here.

 

Muddying up things further: Azerbaijan may be the recipient of some S-300's which has a few other countries upset.  But, since there are reports that Israel and the US may be planning on operations out of Azerbaijan, would the missiles be defense or offensive?  My head hurts, more coffee?

 

Quake Trending

Been watching the USGS Quake Monitor site over the past couple of days since the arrival of the whump on the earth's magnetosphere from the solar C-class flare and solar filament collapse last weekend should have resulted in a couple of good-sized quakes.  And sure enough, there was a 7.0 down in Papua New Guinea, and a 6.0 in the Kuril Islands.  Normal?  We could debate all day long whether there's a correlation.

 

No, this is NOT the end of the world, BUT there are a couple of charts from reader and database whiz Tony Ring who runs through the data off the USGS date server every month for us.

 

 

 

Looking at these charts, if you conclude that we're in a period of generally increased 6.0 quakes since the low period (circa 2003) that wouldn't be a bad inference...and on another chart, the average death is coming up, too.  Average depth of quakes in 2003 was almost 70 kilometers.  Average depth trend recently was around 25 kilometers, although July was back up to almost 68 km.

 

The depth is interesting since the more shallow the quake, the less absorption by a thick layer of earth and the more damaging the surface effects on us humans.

 

Why the focus on EQ trends?  Well, if the 2012 doomsters are right (and I'm not saying I'm not one of them, but we have the problems of this fall and over the next couple of years to make it through to get to the other side of 2012) then we should see a continuing increase in the magnitude and frequency of quakes as we get close to whatever it is that comes in 2012, 2011, or in November of this year...then there's the little matter of...

 

Gorges Watch

While we watch the three Gorges dam situation, the Shanghai Daily reports more than 1,000 people have died from flooding in China.

---

A 2¢ side bet says something in China will pop around Aug. 25th....

 

Chris Christie Fan Club

A couple of readers, after going through the National Revfiew Online article about NJ Governor "Chris Christie: The Scourge of Trenton" are asking why he isn't running for higher office.  It's what they need, they comment.

 

Churchill Ordered Brits' UFO Cover-Up

Quite the article giving up more truth about the government's (worldwide, actually) cover-up of UFO sightings.  Seems a new BBC story out this morning is reporting that Winnie ordered a clamp down on UFO reports to prevent 'mass panic" and "would shatter people's religious views".

 

So here is this morning's interesting thought problem:  Is it better for a government leader to cover-up something like UFO details which might cause people to reexamine their worldviews, OR is it better to cover up and lie?

---

I suppose you know where my sentiments are:  Covering up and lying seems to have become epidemic in the world due in no small part, I'm thinking, to 'offishul cover-ups' and hiding the facts doesn't serve the ideals of freedom and liberty, but I don't have reptilian pals handing me a 'looking glass' so I can feather my own nest, either.

 

Plague's Return

OK, with wars pending on several fronts, low grain outputs in many parts of the world, the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico, what's missing?

 

Well, how about an outbreak of Bubonic Plague...also known as the 'black death' for how it savaged Europe way back when.  So far, only one dead, but at least 31 infected and whether it can be contained, that's the real questionmark.

---

Meantime there's an uptick in Encephalitis...with the acute syndrome version claiming at least 115 deaths this year in India.

 

Not like it's just an overseas problem, though:  Massachusetts is preparing for spraying for the eastern equine version (EEE) there have been three EEE deaths in Florida,  while the mosquito-borne LaCrosse strain has been found in Mississippi,

 

While I could go on listing additional states with cases (Texas among them) what's really interesting is that on the flip side of the disease, a "Modified Encephalitis Virus Shows Anti-Cancer Promise" reports KYW Radio up in Philly.

 

Living the Phat Life

Haven't mentioned the CDC press briefing this week on the growing problem of obesity in America.  Key excerpt from the press briefing by CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden:

"According to 2009 BRFSS data, which we are releasing today, the number of states where self-reported obesity prevalence is 30% or higher has tripled since 2007 from three states to nine states.

 

Less than a decade ago, in 2000, not a single state had an obesity prevalence of 30% or higher. And although the goal for 2010, through "healthy people 2010," was to have an obesity prevalence of 15% or less, not a single state has achieved that goal. The 2009 BRFSS data show a 1.1 percentage point increase, about 2.4 million additional people self-reporting obesity between 2007 and 2009 among adults aged 18 and over.

 

Not only are the costs of obesity high, and I refer you to the Vital Signs color four-page document which has a graphic which gives some of the information about the impacts of obesity, but in addition, the economic costs are high. In 2008 dollars, medical costs associated with obesity were estimated at $147 billion. That translates into medical costs for people who are obese that were $1,429 higher per person each year compared to normal-weight individuals.

 

Six things can reduce or prevent obesity.

 

The first is increasing physical activity.

The second key initiative would be to increase the uptake and continuation of breast feeding, which is healthier both for the infant and the mother.

The third is to increase fruit and vegetable intake.

The fourth is to reduce screen time, TV time.

The fifth is to reduce high-calorie food intake, and in particular, to reduce intake of sugary drinks, making healthier options, such as water.

So, I find myself wondering, what is the sixth thing that can be done?  I used to ask those kinds of questions at press conferences, too... 

 

Meantime, the obesity rate in America is lowest in Colorado, and highest in Mississippi. 2009 data.  Continuing on in our healthy vein...(a poor medical pun if there ever was one...)...

 

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Coping: First Steps in Quantum Healing?

No testimony as to the efficacy of treatment, but Jeff Rense had an interview on last night that several readers thought would be worth mentioning.  The site involved is www.fireburndoctor.com - seems there's a lot that can be done to ease burn pain, scarring and more, and they offer a free telephone number to call within 30-minutes of getting a bad burn.  1-818-332-6445.

 

Another reader offered this:

"The purpose of this global grassroots Burn Eradication Project is to prove to the people, for the first time, using mainstream scientific methodology, the existence of a higher reality, that can be accessed, processed and manifested for our benefit in times of crisis. Anyone can be trained to do it. The goal would then be to have emergency response teams in every major city of the world."

What's involved is a process called "Distant Subliminal Neuro-Bypass (DSNB) and no, it doesn't mean skip the ambulance or the trip to the ER...but what it does purport to do is quicken healing. reduce scarring, and more.  All has to do with the use of subtle energy fields.  Think of it as an early use of 'quantum healing".

 

More data on how this "bio-matrix hacking" works may be found here, but the point is that this is only a first step in what's going to turn into a whole new field of medicine and, since it seems to be a complimentary therapy which doesn't axe the Big Pharma lobby, it may move forward.

 

And if it can be shown to improve results with burns, then might there be other ailments where it could be applied early-on to augment interventions?

 

Specifically I'm thinking trauma cases like motorcycle or car accidents, especially where nerve damage is likely, and maybe even heart attacks.  Not their focus, but it's where this field could lead.

 

Our usual disclaimer here:  This is not medical advice - just a discussion of an issue of public health concern...you're free to make up your own mind.

 

Public service note:  Send article along to Dr. Ron Klatz who does the radio show "Second Opinion" - would love to hear two MD's discuss this more deeply in a further radio interview...I'll let you know when it's on if it comes up....

 

Mere Cats

Scrawled out note from the increasingly 'treads on thin ice" Zeus today:

Hey!  Fat Frigging Biped [FFB]

 

A reader of your has sense and call you a 'racist biped'...check it out, Fatso...

Hey Zeus,

We took over our biped's computer and had to write this: Your guy is calling us "mere cats", and linking to a site that says we stink! There has to be a hate crimes law about that - something about civil rights. Time to get in touch with the New Black Pussy Party and talk about doin' crackers and their babies!

We black cats have to stick together - we're not "mere cats". That's hate speech! Let us know where you stand.

Keep the faith,

Isis and Bianca (black and proud felines of the realm, commandeering MB's computer)

Next time you use a phrase like meerkats which we all know is racist code for 'mere cats' watch yourself.  I got the number for the American Cat Liberties Union and they'll be all over you like white on rice.

ZtC

PS: You see that CDC fat biped story I set on your chair?

I sent him a note "Zeus: See next story".

 

Around the Ranch

Home On The Range

A ham radio buddy dropped by Wednesday morning to do a little tweaking on the bias settings of a desktop 1kw linear amp.  I'd helped him set up a series of Zener diodes to create the right bias point instead of building a separate bias supply and it seems to be OK, or nearly so.

 

But, this being Texas, we also got around to shooting and he brought along his new toy - a nice matt finished .308 with a scope on it bigger than my forearm with one of those 'green dots' in it.  Also some of those little military targets that you can print out - six to a standard 8½ by 11 sheet of paper since the silhouettes are just 2½" high, or so.

 

The idea is that if you can a grouping on the silhouettes at 25 yards, that's the same as hitting a full-sized  silhouette of a wandering biped at 100-yards.

 

We didn't sight it in Wednesday, in deference to the animals around here (ahem...) like the cats, but there was also a dandy discussion of the virtues of various .45 rounds for handguns, simple hollow points, versus polymers, and so on.  And, since he's an ex-cop and has been to a few anti-sniper schools, a discussion of 'secret sauce' loads.

 

All of which gets me back to tractor repairs that are due today.  As much fun as it would have been to sight in the .308/scope, the range is a bit overgrown at the moment and needs a good bush-hogging.  To do that, an early morning with a bit of dew still on is nice - keeps the dust down.

 

But that means the tractor has to be running, and I've got parts to pick up and install to make that happen, and that's going to eat up some time.  And, before the tractoring, the lawn needs to get whacked, so that means a trip into town with the empty gas cans, and since we a 2-stroke weed whacker,

that means mixing gas and a trip to the local AutoZone or O'Reilly's for coolant and a new back-up mirror for the tractor - one fell victim to falling tree.

 

And then there's a tree which fell across the shootin' range in a high wind & rain several months back that needs to be cut up and burned, and that means fixing the chainsaw, which promptly broke right after its last trip to the doctor's office.  Sometimes I think I own the Texas massacred chainsaw.

 

And before all those things get done, this is garbage day and that's always good for a half-hour scramble to police up the area and get trash out for pick-up...

 

If this sounds like an engineering nightmare (e.g. cascading failures), it's not - really.  Well, kinda, maybe, sort-of.

 

People in Big Cities don't realize how cushy they have it:  If you want to shoot a gun in town, most times you can find a safely equipped range and get on a lane for the cost of ammo or little more. 

 

Push button, send target down range...

 

Out here, it's a little more involved.  Fix tractor, fix chainsaw, work for a couple of mornings, round up cats and goats to keep them out of harms way (ahem...Z?), shoo off the deer, look for snakes, check the back stops, call the neighbors and tell them it's not an invasion (they reciprocate, which is nice) and then try to do it on a day when it's cool and the shooting can be done in relative comfort.

 

My friend, who isn't being asked to take part in all the aforementioned festivities, will be the guy on one of the local ranges this week, who not only will bring his assortment of guns, sand bags, but also a small Honda generator to run his assortment of fans since it's hotter than comfortable shooting weather.

 

I'm convinced after reviewing the situation, that shooting practice should only be done in spring or fall.  Winters are for skiing, outdoor construction projects, and off-roading. 

 

And just what is summer good for?  Not really sure, but everything that comes to mind happens inside where it's air conditioned, except maybe a trip to the garden, and even that's at your own peril since by mid August the garden is so overgrown, you're lucky to find anything intentionally planted, except maybe the 'maters and the larger of the squash family.  Those nice herbs from earlier in the year?  Toast...suffocated by runaway 'everything elses'.

 

Does make going to the garden like going on a treasure hunt, though.  I'll keep you posted on if I find anything up there.

 

The City Dweller's bottom line:  Life in East Texas provides many fine examples of how quickly Mother Nature recovers from man's best efforts at taming her.  Except that unlike lost cities of Amazonia, it won't take any several hundred years out here.  Just a good rain and a week or two more sunshine.

 

No Rhyme, Less Reason

My comment the other day that there are no words that rhyme with purple, orange, silver, or month proved to me once again how elastic people are in their thinking.  One of the more thoroughly researched replies?

On the following words, I fear your Google-Fu let you down:

Purple - Curple

Orange - Sporange

Silver - Chilver

Month - Humph (I didn't make it up - http://thehumphtrust.org/ )

Granted, they are very obscure and seldom used. Similar to chattel and fard. An expanded vocabulary can be a blessing and a curse.

I'm not big on farding...but OK, maybe a curple is the stramp under a horse's saddle, and a sporange may have spores, but the root word orange is still in it, so I have to toss that out on a technical foul.  Same root word, 5-yard penalty, second down.

 

I didn't know a female lamb was called a chilver, but it make me wonder if the world 'children' is a bastardization/adaptation of that word.

 

And Humpf (which expresses doubt) DOESN'T rhyme with month. 

 

However, if it will make you feel any better, I'm sure that among that 21.6-gazillion typos on this site you can find month mispelt as mumpf.

 

---

Wednesday August 4, 2010

Happy Birthday - For Whom?

President Obama turns 49 today and despite what the 'birthers' say, I'm reasonably sure he was born somewhere.  And I'm nearly as sure the financial world is doing its part to contribute to the happy birthday party mood.  The Dow a year ago closed out August 3rd at 8,017.59.  A whopping 32.66% gain is not a bad present to start with.  And on top of that, good employment prospects which we'll get to in a sec.

 

On the other hand, if *I am reading the polls right*, the most recent Gallup poll gave Mr. Obama a 45 percent approval rating.  This compares with a year-ago Gallup reading of 55 percent.  A year ago a Fox News poll scored a 53% approval rating while a more recent poll (late July) had him at 43 percent approval.

 

In 2009, Operation Enduring Freedom cost 317 American lives while this year's to is already 269 with four and a half months left to go.  So our casualties are tracking toward 430 for the year at the current run rate.

 

Healthcare Reform wasn't enacted a year ago and now we've got that to look forward to.   Or do we?  Voters in Missouri turned down mandatory federal healthcare by a 3 to 1 margin, or thereabouts.  More challenges and opting out efforts are expected.

 

But happy birthday to the President. I'm sure my birthday party invite was simply misplaced by staff.

 

ADP Payrolls

Latest from ADP's Macroeconomic Advisors, LLC group is just out today:

Nonfarm private employment increased 42,000 from June to July 2010 on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the ADP National Employment Report®. The estimated change of employment from May to June was revised up slightly, from the previously reported increase of 13,000 to an increase of 19,000.

 

July’s rise in private employment was the sixth consecutive monthly gain. However, over those six months increases have averaged a modest 37,000, with no evidence of acceleration.

 

Unlike the estimate of total establishment employment to be released on Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), today’s figure does not include the effects of federal hiring — and now firing — for the 2010 Census. Hiring for the census peaked in May. For this reason, Friday’s figure for the change in nonfarm total employment reported by the BLS might be weaker than today’s estimate for nonfarm private employment in the ADP National Employment Report.

 

July’s ADP Report estimates nonfarm private employment in the service-providing sector rose by 63,000. Employment in the goods-producing sector declined 21,000 during July while employment in the manufacturing sector decreased 6,000, the first decrease in six months.

 

Large businesses, defined as those with 500 or more workers, saw employment remain flat and employment among medium-size businesses, defined as those with between 50 and 499 workers increased by 21,000. Employment among small-size businesses, defined as those with fewer than 50 workers, increased by 21,000 in July.*

Worth your time to click the link and look at their charts, too.  Most of the grow was in small/medium services while good manufacturing continued to drop, down another 21,000 jobs for the month. 

 

This has caused the futures to rise and may result in yet another pop up to recent highs and beyond.

 

Holden the Golden

A couple of readers have asked me why I haven't made much of the recent declines of the US dollar and the reports going around that China was going to expand the use of gold internally. 

 

The answer is simple:  I am not a gold trader.  To me, gold is one of those things that you go out, buy a little when you can, and then wait for the Feral Reserve's dollar watering-down policies to buoy your purchase up to something approaching maintaining purchasing power over time.

 

Since the government is watering down the dollar's purchasing power by about 2.3% per year going back to 1913 (a year that will live in infamy) reporting on the dollar drifting down toward levels it's been before is about as challenging to a writer as doing play-by-play reporting of the tide coming in.

 

It's inevitable that gold will float and the dollar will sink and yes, the "death of the dollar" meme in predictive linguistics is still intact.  As I said before, we don't have money to buy more, but we're not selling the two coins we have.

 

Where's My ViceGrips Department

An Oil Miracle!

A reader who sounds like they might need to borrow a pair to pinch themselves with sends this:

"The U.S. government is expected to announce that three-quarters of the oil from the BP Plc spill in the Gulf of Mexico has already evaporated, dispersed, or been captured or eliminated, The New York Times reported on Wednesday." Did I read that correctly? The oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico was the equivalent of the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez every 4 to 7 days. And this spilled form months.21 YEARS LATER, there are still issues from that. Does the government expect us to believe that this disaster is all OK now, and will not pose anymore problems?

Tisk, tisk.  Perception management.  Here, watch a mindless movie in high def, brush your teeth with this fluoride-added stuff and take your pills like a good lil' sheep...

 

"You Have Losses"

AOL, once famous for "You have mail" out of its web software, just posted a largish accounting loss for Q2.  At least around here, $1.4 billion in losses is largish - even by Texas standards -- although likely not by Washington standards.  There, it'd be budget dust...

 

March to War, Data Points

We can't help but notice the reports that a homemade bomb failed to take out Iranian president Ahmadinejad.  More details from the Jerusalem Post's web site here.  How-some-ever, Al Jazeera is headlining that "Iran denies attack on Ahmadinejad" so who knows what the real story is.

 

Real or just a psyops?  Here, take this here pill....all better in a few minutes....

---

Speaking of Iran, their government news service has a really interesting story about a major wildfire that is endangering a 'top secret Russian nuclear research facility"  Since a good deal of the Iranian nuclear infrastructure was sold to them by Russia, makes sense they'd be plugged in to what Russia is up to on this front...

 

Big wildfires in British Columbia, too, BTW..;.

---

And as the world careens toward mushrooms this winter, Israel is complaining to the UN about the border skirmish on Tuesday that left several dead.

---

Good background story over at www.military.com about how the US is trying to treat stressed G.I.'s in theater rather than rotating them out.

 

Global Warming Debate Returning

Weather War Docs Out

Lots of background, first:  A few folks have asked me to comment on reports that many big cities, such as Washington D.C. and Las Vegas have experienced record (or record tying) heat for the month of July.  The usual question is "Are you prepared to admit you were wrong for being so cynical when the climate data tweaking came out around the time of the Copenhagen Climate summit?"

 

Take Nevada where the National Weather Service issued this:

"WELL IF YOU FELT YOU SWELTERED THIS PAST MONTH MORE THAN USUAL...YOU ARE CORRECT. JULY 2010 WILL GO DOWN AS THE WARMEST MONTH EVER AND THUS THE WARMEST JULY EVER IN LAS VEGAS WITH RECORDS DATING BACK TO 1937. AT THE OFFICIAL CLIMATE STATION AT MCCARRAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT THE AVERAGE MONTHLY TEMPERATURE WAS 96.2 DEGREES.

 

THE PREVIOUS RECORD FOR THE WARMEST MONTH EVER AND WARMEST JULY EVER WAS HELD BY JULY 2007 WITH AN AVERAGE TEMPERATURE OF 95.4 DEGREES. THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE THIS JULY WAS EXACTLY 5.0 DEGREES ABOVE NORMAL. THE WARMTH THIS PAST MONTH WAS LARGELY DUE TO WARM LOW TEMPERATURES THAT WERE PREVALENT IN THE LATER TWO-THIRDS OF THE MONTH. THE AVERAGE LOW TEMPERATURE THIS MONTH WAS 85.7 DEGREES WHICH SETS A RECORD FOR THE WARMEST EVER FOR ANY MONTH. THE PREVIOUS RECORD WAS 83.8 SET IN JULY 2006. THERE WERE ALSO A RECORD 6 DAYS IN JULY WITH LOWS OF AT LEAST 90 DEGREES OR BETTER...INCLUDING A STRETCH OF 5 IN A ROW.

 

THE PREVIOUS RECORD FOR THE MOST DAYS WITH A LOW TEMPERATURE OF AT LEAST 90 DEGREES OR BETTER IN A MONTH WAS 5 SET IN JULY 2005. THE WARMEST LOW TEMPERATURE AT MCCARRAN WAS 93 DEGREES ON THE 19TH WHICH TIED JULY 17 2005 FOR THE 3RD HIGHEST LOW TEMPERATURE EVER.

 

THE AVERAGE LOW TEMPERATURE AT MCCARRAN WAS 3.2 DEGREES WARMER THAN AT THE NEARBY NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFICE. HOWEVER...HIGH TEMPERATURES WERE ALSO ABOVE NORMAL THIS MONTH. THE AVERAGE MONTHLY HIGH TEMPERATURE AT MCCARRAN TIES FOR THE 13TH WARMEST EVER AT 106.6 DEGREES TIED WITH 2003. THE TOTAL NUMBER OF DAYS THIS MONTH WITH A TRIPLE DIGIT HIGH TEMPERATURE IN LAS VEGAS WAS 31. THIS TIES THE ALL-TIME RECORD FOR JULY OF 31 DAYS SET IN 1988...1971...1963 AND 1944.

 

COUNTING THE 4 AUGUSTS THAT HAVE HAD EVERY DAY REACH THE TRIPLE DIGITS ONLY NINE MONTHS EVER IN LAS VEGAS DATING BACK TO 1931 HAVE HAD EVERY SINGLE DAY IN THE MONTH REACH INTO THE TRIPLE DIGITS. JULY 1988 WAS THE LAST TIME A MONTH IN LAS VEGAS SAW THE HIGH REACH THE TRIPLE DIGITS ON EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE MONTH.

That said, I'll just sit back and watch the data comer in.  That's because, as Channel 10 reported, San Diego has the coolest July in nearly 100-years and even Lubbock, Texas, just a 6-week walk west of us reported the third coolest July on record.  My commodity guy, JB up in Prescott Arizona is positively giddy about the cool summer there so far.

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"Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it" whined Mark Twain a while back.  (quite a while, at that I suppose).

 

Still, the persistent high pressure over the S.E. US has added fuel to the debate over whether the government has more control over the weather than they officially let on to...and the quick dissipation of Tropical whatever-it-was Colin is just about back-asswards of what would normally be expected of a tropical depression at this time of year.  Tinfoil hat?  HAARP data here.

---

No!  A reader sent me an amazing site today put up by the Agriculture Defense Coalition which lists tons of official documents - which if you read through them all (I'm still working on it) make one hell of a case that not only is weather control real but it is being used as a conscious tool of national and international policy.

 

Help me if I've got it wrong here, but where the hell did humans cede power to government to screw with Ma Nature like this?

 

Again: No incumbents in 2010...

 

Copyright Issue, or NOT?

I've been reporting to you over the past month, or so, about the increased pressure by big media outfits on web sites which wholesale rip off material without adding comment, commentary or context, and call that a business model.  Seems to me that is a pretty clear case of infringing on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

 

But now come reports that the FBI is pressuring Wikipedia to remove its seal from the public encyclopedia as being too detailed which might make it subject to misused and abuse.  

 

The seal at issued (click here while you can) is NOT what I'd call the pinnacle of fine engravery.  Nice, yeah, but come on, who owns the seal?  Isn't it owned by the public?

 

Wikipedia also has imagery of items like US Dollars (here) which Treasury hasn't gotten all worked up over.  Besides, anyone with Corel Draw or other competent graphics program could recreate most anything in a matter of a few hours...and with ultra-high resolution scanners and the printing operation in North Korea, isn't this a little silly?

 

Where is Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. when we need him?

 

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Wednesday at the WuJo

Coping:  Underground Housing ...But First....

Before we get started on the loads of info on underground housing, let me first share this from our 'quirky kinda science" department, edited by Zeus the Cat:

"Hey! Fat Frigging Biped [FFB]:  Reader wants to know this:

Hi George, I know you like fiddling with electronics bits, and I recently sent you my thoughts on making a highly insulated small house with liteblok38. Taking into account Cliff's thoughts about the possibility of a massive CME. He proposed constructing a house with a thin membrane of metallic material (aluminum foil). Creating in effect a Faraday cage. Now, me being the type who wants to go one better I thought maybe it would be better not to only put one layer of foil outside, but to also line the inside of the house with a layer of foil. The question is this: Would this create a large capacitor? And, if so what would be the results on any inhabitants inside? Thanks

Signed hisself as a fellow Texian, so figured it deserved an answer...

 

Also - why so stingy on the ScienceDiet this morning - kinda one-sided, eh, FFB?

ZtC"

I had a longish conversation with Zeus about this one (and documented his attitude to his personnel file, paw print and all).  The problem (besides Ztc's BS surly attitude) is not so much the reader's question about whether the second layer 'will it form a capacitor' but rather the 'what will it do to the people inside?' part.  If anything...

 

The traditionalist in electronics would quickly point out two properties of such a structure.  First, it will keep some radio and electronic waves out.  But the flip side is that it will keep other waves in.  Which means if you have a cell phone, the bioeffects (however small) could be amplified, a leaky microwave (more properly spelled microwave) might be more dangerous, and a wireless router, electrically noise equipment like an old-style television with a high voltage for the picture tube might be kept in.

 

But it's here that we can take a left turn into the WuJo - that place of intellectual pursuits where just the observable facts  and the present theories often do battle.

 

Let me whip out my copy of Wilhelm Reich's work which is fairly well summarized in his Ether, God & Devil & Cosmic Superimposition which I was reading to our other cat (Puscilla) just the other day.  If you don't have time to read up on the history of Reich here, the really short version is that depending on who you talk to (and whether you have a whole Western socioeconomic paradigm including system of medicine to defend, you'll either blast away at Reich as a charlatan (not unlike Nikolas Tesla, BTW) in which case you may work for the government or the medical paradigm defender agencies OR you will read his work on a subtle energy called "orgone energy".

 

The key learning is that what many in the East call ki or chi energy seems to be Reich's orgone energy which, in turn he figured, could be accumulated and could also come in a form called DOR (deadly orgone). 

 

The inventor's section at About.Com picks up the answer from there...

"In 1940, Wilhelm Reich constructed the first device to accumulate orgone energy: a six-sided box constructed of alternating layers of organic materials (to attract the energy) and metallic materials (to radiate the energy toward the center of the box). Patients would sit inside the accumulator and absorb orgone energy through their skin and lungs. The accumulator had a healthy effect on blood and body tissue by improving the flow of life-energy and by releasing energy-blocks."

So, the question is:  Does living inside an orgone/ki/chi accumulator have a good effect on health, or not?  Kinda like "pyramid energy"  (remember that fad which went around?). 

 

So turn off your access points, then plenty of research --- no, maybe do that first - and send us a note on your 130th birthday outlining your success.  I'll be the mummy in the third pyramid from the left...trying to figure out how to pull a Sorcerer's Apprentice...we got the dirt and bugs around here...which slides us along to:

 

Deep Into Underground Housing (longish)

The idea of building an underground root cellar / tornado shelter / cool room here at the ranch has solicited literally dozens of good ideas and comments.  Here's a sampling:

----

George,

if you're looking for GREAT underground house information, you need look no further than the man I consider the guru of underground house construction: Malcolm Wells. He has numerous books on the subject, and all of them are hand lettered - just beautiful books. About 10 years ago I even ran a serialized version of his classic, How to Build an Underground House, in my newspaper (much to the chagrin of some of my readers - I live in the first fully electrified community in the United States: Norris, Tennessee (next door to Oak Ridge)). I think the man is brilliant. If memory serves, I discovered his work, along with Bob Nelson's Rex Research and Neil Graves' history rewriting work on Shakespeare, at about the same time. That was shortly after I took the helm of The Norris Bulletin and I think a lot of the readers must've thought I lost my mind... Ha, The Norris Bulletin was certainly the most eclectic newspaper in the whole area for a while... But anyway, check out Malcolm Wells. He can probably answer any question regarding underground construction you might have. - Eric Paquette, Editor The Norris Bulletin

Done and Amazon has several:

 Earth-Sheltered House, Revised Edition: An Architect's Sketchbook

 

 Recovering America : A More Gentle Way to Build

 

 How to Build Underground Houses (2009 Reprint)

Next was this dandy contribution:

I am supposed to be doing something else but this can not wait. You and Clif have saved my family's bacon multiple times during the last 5+ years. Both of you have allowed us retain the resources to do things outside the BOX like a Root Cellar for these coming, "Times of Need".

First; start with the Root Cellar Bible;

 Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables (Nancy Bubel & Mike Bubel). ($10.17 - G)

Second; if you purchase a prefab unit you will not save that much money and with their roof designs you will end up with much smaller space than you expect. This happened to someone I know. The price of alternatives depends on where you live and the current cost of construction materials.

Third; Properly designed and constructed, the Root Cellar can serve multiple purposes. When I started into my project I had no idea how perfect it would be finished out. My luck was to engage the proper contractor who has a deep history of heavy, industrial grade projects AND grew up living with Root Cellars, canning, home grown food, etc.. The .jpgs will show you how I lucked out. (For obvious reasons-inside pictures only)

Fourth; I already sent you the need for a root cellar to have a proper ventilation and drainage system (or Sump Pump) which can both be sealed off from the outside environment.

Fifth; I installed a steel shed over mine. (What did Mr. Faraday Know???) Steel Sheds and ReBar! ALL WELDED TOGETHER.

Sixth; "GO WITH THE FLOW", and The UNIVERSE will provide the answers for any hangups during your project. I would throw out ideas to my contractor and with a time delay we would agree on the proper direction to proceed. The first thing I did was present him with a copy of the Bubel's Book and asked him to thumb through it for ideas.

Seventh; Investigate what you are living in now. You might already have the perfect space on your Domain which can be converted into a Root Cellar at Zero Cost.

Thanks for ALL you and Clif are doing,

[name withheld]

P.S. the roof/floor ended up to be 9 inches of reinforced concrete!

All of which got me to thinking:  Gee, how would I build a roof/cover for such a beast if I wanted to pour concrete and slap in a lot of rebar?  Well, a picture of the pouring of the upstairs floor, downstairs roof is just amazing.  No, I have no idea what ever happened to all that plywood, but sure as hell, there's enough wood used for bracing that a good sized building could be put up with that alone.

 

Speaking of construction techniques, no one sent in the idea, but I have toyed around with the idea of making a monolithic dome out of a large weather balloon.  If you're not familiar with the system, a click over here will give you an idea or 20...  And mine was "Say, if I bought a weather balloon, got it table enough (with a form around the base, maybe?) and then shot it with a thin later of guncrete and then built up the inside shell, cured, then rebar it, shoot a layer, rebar some more, shoot another layer, repeat until 6" thick which would be strong as hell... I could almost certainly make something strong enough to keep the outside out and the inside in.  So that's one more idea.

 

Here in Texas, shooting things is a kind of state pastime and an if something has a nozzle or trigger on it, its popularity rises accordingly.

---

We continue to be stymied by the matter of scorpions and snakes, which brings along the idea that bugs in the ground and creepy crawly things don't get mentioned in many of the underground house books (at least in my readings so far).  But, that's why we share information about here:

"I have some info on scorpions and their remediation. As a resident of the rocky part of Central Texas for 50 years, I can speak from observation and experience.

1. Scorpions indoors are always worse in dry years. Simple thirst and hunger. They also prefer coolness; hence they will congregate in and under pier and beam houses, etc. Your weather this year is more like Central Texas most years.

2. Scorpions thrive on other insects. The locust plague this year, plus all the new varieties of bugs prospering after the extra cold Winter, are a buffet for scorpions. Expect more next Spring as their eggs hatch.

3. They are not that venomous, thank goodness.

4. In my house, they egress through the attic, using shoddy construction of electrical and plumbing access holes. They will literally jump in freefall down onto anything. Creepy when it's a newspaper in one's bed. Look in baths, showers etc. for them, as they love water. AC compressors are one source people forget about. Treat in the dark places under tubs and showers, etc.

5. The commercial insecticides which get through scorpions' armor would not pass the Avatar test, if you get my drift. And they are short lived. We have had excellent success with blown-in diatomaceous earth, under the house and in the attic. Some people use sticky insect traps as well. A decent insect guy could tell you if BT baits would work. You essentially would feed the prey and scorpions would feast on their corpses, passing on the bacterial infection. Works for locusts.

6. As with red wasps, one can somewhat train scorpions. The Kinship of All Life explains it better, but I have a "psychic" deal with my wasps that they will stay away from places where people move about, (doors, porches, etc.) and I will not kill their nests in other places. After around 5 years of this arrangement, killing any aggressive wasps and their nests, but leaving the amiable ones alone, nobody gets stung, and we have a legion of natural pest control critters. There is a nest in my very cramped well house. I have spent literally hours working on the pump, with my head 1 foot from the wasps. They know I will not kill their babies if they leave me alone, but that they will not see morning if they do, so all is well. I will move the babies to a safe, dry place in the pole barn, this Fall, so they don't make the Well hose a new frontier. Haven't been stung (by wasps) here in about 18 years. I have a similar deal with fire ants. If they keep their distance they live. If not they die. But they can share 9 of my 10 acres. Oddly, they so "get" this that when I had an unusual infestation of cockroaches which came into the kitchen with some groceries, the ants came in and cleaned out the roaches (and eggs) out and promptly left.

7. My kid left a towel on the floor of my bathroom a couple of years ago, instead of on the rack. I got out of the shower and began drying off with it. I felt a stinging on my chest. It took several seconds to grasp that a scorpion was scuttling across my chest under the towel stinging as it went. Sounds like Hitchcock, but the stings are not nearly as creepy as the critters. Short version: If you can, seal all the houses' outdoor accesses, especially to water. Keep things dry and neat. Give them no safe habitat indoors. Consider putting up with them outside, and giving them (and all other creatures) water and shade - outside. Like snakes, they keep down pests of other types. i reluctantly tolerate snakes except rattlers/venomous snakes near the house/human use areas and water moccasins anywhere.

8. My Grandfather grew up in a dugout in Clovis, New Mexico. I always wondered just why they moved up into those incredibly hot in Summer, cold in Winter, crackerbox houses, with no insulation, in the high desert. He didn't remember, but I found out it was bugs, mold, fungus and snakes. Your earth shelter design thus would benefit from critter prevention measures. Mostly, that's just sealing things off and keeping dryness/ventilation going. Perhaps you know (I don't) how to hook up a smallish solar/battery/inverter/generator setup to a 500w air conditioner. That would sure keep an insulated earth shelter dry.

9. Far more dangerous is the brown recluse spider. They live in more parts of the country than scorpions, but the remediation is similar. No water, no safe indoor hiding places (DTE in the walls).

We found one trapped in a bottle of shampoo in a guest bathroom once. Ugh.

Another reader solved the scorpion idea gracefully with this:

"Meerkats are what you need. They go nuts over the creepy little critters...."

All of which had me shopping for a breeding pair of meerkats, but then I ran across a site which put me off to them: www.meerkats.com and besides, I'm sure i'd get into some kind of hot water with EPA or the Texas Department of Environmental Quality if I set breeding meerkats loose.  My attorney advised me that my idea of claiming "selective enforcement" of environmental laws ("Where's the sonavabitch who brought in fire ants? Huh?  You tell me!!") for over-running East Texas with meerkats wouldn't be successful and he wouldn't take the case in any event,  so don't do it.

 

Where were we?

 

Oh, yeah, trying to get the underground house/room/tornado shelter built.  Here's a good one:

"Buy the “ Nuclear war survival skills book “ , free to download on the net, but the diagrams for the radiation detector on not to scale. You can get the book from emergency essentials for $12.95.."

Fine idea... here's a link to their site, too.  As luck would have it, I had the book in my library but just hadn't gotten to it yet, figuring that I'd have time between the first mushroom cloud (with would take out the lighting and computers) and when the first clouds of radiation actually got here, to get the radiation monitoring up and find out how 'well-done' we'll be.  (Remind 'em to turn the war off when we're about medium-well 165º I think that is.)

 

Speaking of getting baked, a number of readers suggested we get a bunch of ocean shipping containers:

"I remembered this snippet from the news (link to a story about a massive drug farm underground)  [FFB is suddenly looking alert now - Zrc]

if you google "buried shipping container" you'll get tons of pics/projects

Might not do it on a $1k budget, but a cheap container and a days hire for a 13-18ton excavator would have the job done in a day ;)

I've considered it myself, but the water table round here is measured in inches not feet (flood plain tho my house is on brick stilts)."

One of the blessings of East Texas is we can rent heavy machinery for fairly inexpensively and do the work ourselves.  The goes like this: if you rent the equipment and hurt yourself on your own land, oh well.  Which is fine, because the only way you learn to drive a Cat D-6 is by either getting it stuck or running over something important (like a car) or through a building.  (Haven't done the building yet, but I'm not dead yet, either; stuck I've done.) 

 

Point I was getting to (I think...) was that a day of a 7' feet reaching back hoe hereabouts is under $500 (delivered) for the day and the 35-foot scissor lift which I gotta get out for antenna work again is about $260 a day (delivered) which may be what happens on Sunday morning before Peoplenomics gets done this week...priorities are priorities...

 

Here's another approaching I liked:

"G. am just completing an 12' X 18' underground (floor is 7' below grade) as an addition to a pre-existing 8' X 16' root cellar that was here when I bought the place in the 70's.... altho I have all the receipts I don't really know how much I've spent...[Boy - do I know that one - G]  probably a couple thousand, cinder block, sand, gravel & Portland, rebar, lumber, etc. will be installing the roof in the morning that will support between 2 and 3' of dirt and a cactus rock garden to keep people from walking on it. In the past 30 yrs I've been able to keep it pretty much in hi 30's in the winter (potatoes spoil below 38 degrees) and mid 40's to low 50's in the summer, by opening the door at midnite and closing it at 6 or 7 am. Talked with your guy at emerg. essentials and he said it should be ideal as a radiation (solar or nuclear) shelter (bought some radiation detection equip from him) .Started the proj in Apr and should have it finished in a week or so except for the landscaping ending up with a fairly livable space about 10 by 12' with plenty of storage and shelves that can double as bunk beds plus the old root cellar and a 7 X 8' room devoted to the well, charging equip, eg, inverters, chg controllers, 16 Rolls Serete batteries, etc. Well also has a manual Simple Pump in case the solar should go down for what ever reason. Be happy to send you some photos if you'd like. [name withheld] north of Santa Fe"

Hmmm...sounds like a dandy room... A lady (who with her husband read Urban) somewhere east of Puget Sound sent in a suggestion that you might get some useful scoop out of a book called No Such Thing As Doomsday : How to Prepare for Earth Changes, Power Outages, Wars & Other Threats which if the title carries through the book sounds very much like our kind of thinking here.  I would have probably titled it: No Such thing as Doomsday, just Republicorp and Democorp Scammers, but nevertheless she continues....

"We have n 'earth-sheltered' all concrete home, and we thought that an animal "barn" should be UG as well. Haven't done it yet, as time & money are the factors, we are considering yet another living space, over a 'barn', use the animal heat or whatever. The Sun-disease is a concern, though, we are even considering using two feet of earth topside on the roof itself, covered with a metal roofing, so the rain and snow don't take out our buffer. One of our 'tenants', is to build every out- building so as to be a living space if need be. Shelter at least, not all have the accomodations of running water or solar, but usually gas (propane) heaters (for a while anyway.) Several wood stoves around, and finding parts is not too bad. When we discovered a Propane refrigerator repair guy, "Cool Unit" out of Idaho, he discards the old refrigerator forms, (without the motors,) and will give them to us free to haul off. We are considering making some of them into an under-our-walkway-to-the-outdoor-deck storage root cellar type things, and one to refurb into an "Ice Box" out on the deck for summer drinks. There's no end to the ideas here!"

Say, I did forget to mention that when we were up in Seattle (Tacoma actually) I had forgotten how really bad saltwater beaches can smell on a hot day.  First day or so back up north I found myself looking around for the bean-gasser...but it was just the beach.  Either time erases some smells,. or I just forgot some of the aromas of Tacoma's...

 

Our next email is along the same lines, except a little more fall-out focused:

Peoplenomics subscriber here and longtime reader of UrbSurv. A couple of years ago I became worried abut "Crazy George" (not you)  [I figured - G] and Iran and started to work on a fallout shelter. I have a laundry room that was added to my 100+ year old house, creating a room about 6 feet by 20 feet with 2' concrete walls on one side and cinder blocks on the exterior.

First off, I must say to readers I do not expect a FALLOUT shelter to be an ideal place to be in a nuclear war. I have a BOB and plan to head to the mountains IF I have advance warning. The shelter is for the OMG surprise attack that sets my radiological survey meter off.

First, the shelter really sucks. NOBODY would want to live in it, but everyone would want to be in it to stay alive, if they only knew.

Essentially, it's NOT a blast shelter. Modern nukes are deviously efficient. Multiple warheads are the norm, positioned to explode in the air over targets for simultaneous bursts creating maximum destruction. Targeted cities will NOT survive.

A fallout shelter is for hits elsewhere. Frankly, a military realist will target other nuclear sites with the highest priority, societies with a high fear factor (for the locals) have relatively low immediate military value (think about survival).

OK. So, the rule for fallout shelters is, as succinctly as I can put it, " Only Mass Will Save Your Ass."

As far as calculating mass is concerned, the weakest link is the biggest threat. Starting underground is a huge advantage. I have a starting shelter about 5 feet underground. I ripped out my deck in my backyard as a first step. Then, someone in the neighborhood bought too much gravel and gave it away on Craigslist. I greedily loaded my car repeatedly until it was gone. Good for building the outside mass. For the inside, another Craigslist listing for free bricks started my inside structure. That was several days of hard labor, but I built several massive brick columns. To make it all work, I bought several main pressure treated main beams, and supported them with elephant jacks as well as the brick structures. Old Skool engineering: Too much is exactly right. I want it to withstand a nuclear attack! (Even if I can't). Then, endless cull lumber ($1.00 or less per board) as cross members, followed by endless carry bags of dirt (like sandbags) on top of the shelter support system.

Let me just say this for all your readers. Anyone who has the delusion that they will create an "expedient shelter" if a nuke attack happens, doesn't really comprehend the reality that "ONLY MASS will save your ass!". MASS means BIG, HEAVY things that take a LONG time and HEAVY lifting. I've done it. "IT" takes WEEKS of HEAVY, HARD labor. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME WITHOUT ADVANCE PREPARATION! Take it from someone who has actually done it!

As luck would have it, being a radiation retreat is actually #3 on our priority list here after a summer cool room which operates FREE of power and the secondary purpose which is tornado shelter.  There, mass is nice, but not as important as being simply below grade with maybe 6" of concrete between us and the 300- MPH whirlwind near the touchdown point.

 

I keep coming back to shipping containers because readers keep bringing them up:

"Hey this is only a suggestion but if you were being serious about the school bus maybe you could use a second hand shipping container instead. I don't know how easy they would be to transport to where you live but they might be a viable option. Here is one on ebay for $300 .."

Good idea here": Hit www.eBay.com and search shipping container and there are some interesting ones.

 

A further tip:  If youi scroll down the left side menu of eBay and click on More under the "Location" fly-out, you can put in your zip code which I did for the ranch.  While there were some real bargains, like a 20 box off a truck that was only $1,200 (before delivery) the big 40-footers were in the $2750 and up range.

 

If you got really deep pockets, there was a 24-foot refrigerated container which would hold 20 below (link may expire so may not show up in the archives later on) but this is really cool (literally and figuratively. Which only leaves me with where the hell to get three-phase power out here, but that's another martini's worth of discussion.

 

Our budget on this fiasco is only $500-bucks.  So the container is out, although there's some discussion of whether they would hold us buried.  no question in my mind that a truck box wouldn't take the load.  But the containers are stacked all over hell & gone on ships and bounced and...yeah, they're tough.

 

So back to the emails looking for a better sense of thrift.  $500 bucks - not counting equipment rental, beer, or hospital expenses.

"George, RE: underground shelters. I have many suggestions. You could dig a hole say 8 by 12 and with some shovel work (by Mr. Diligent Diesel?????) square it off nicely then cover it with tree logs from your property width Wise and top it off with pond liner not a plastic formed liner but the sheet liner I would use for a 8 by 12 - a 20 by 30 sheet because you have to cover the logs and ground around to prevent rain damage. If you do not have to rent a tractor this would cost you mostly time and work. Then you can frame the inside at a later date. I would at least cover it with 4 feet of soil to protect from radiation. The door could be corrugated drain pipe available in almost any size with a heavy steel frame and door. You can get manhole drain fittings and covers at junk yards or county sales. Maybe find something on eBay for a door or on the coast a ship door. I would make a 2 door unit. Air systems cost about 3,500 so many use a vacuum hepa filter system hooked to solar, grounded of course.

You could also use a 8 ft round corrugated pipe they come in any length and weld sides on it. A flat board floor would prevent you from slipping and protect from radiation.

You could use steel as a cover for the dug out shelter also instead of tree poles.

You can purchase a old trailer or bus ( which reminds me of Bruce Beach) in Idaho who buried like 20 buses he has photos on his web site.

I have several 3,500 gallon underground water tanks that I dug holes for and popped in covered with 2 by 12 treated wood , stone and pond liner but you have to be able to fit your body in the tanks hole that is located on the top of these round tanks. I used pipe for a air valve and the bottom outlet for sanitation purposes by digging a side hole that draws away from the unit about 10 ft and the hole then has a gas outlet. You can order them any size and shape some are thousands and thousands of gallons they are like houses but mine cost about 1,000 and I have seen this size for 1/2 the price on Craig's list since. If anything they are great hiding and stash spots.

I eventually buried a 20 foot steel sea container in the side of a mountain. Sea containers here are about 2,000 for this size in good condition. Maybe you could find a 10 footer but I have to warn you work is involved with this project. I used under car Armour to coat it then rolled the container with cold tar ( not bad really) but because I wanted it to hold 4 feet of dirt on the top of it I framed the whole container on the outside with 2 by 12 treated wood completely. Then I shoved straw hay all around it and over the top for more insulation and cover it with 8 inches of rock all the way around ( bullet proof maybe) then pond liner and 4 feet of dirt. It stays about 30 to 35 degrees cooler than outside in summer months that can be 110 here. Where I am located I am not to worried about radiation so I used the sea container vents near the roof for air vents that that have a downward vent like on a dryer of course this unit is in the side of a mountain so I can do that, if it was straight under ground I would have attached air vents through the already installed sea vent and up. I then screened them to be pest proof and they are sealed by welds at this point until needed. I have a toilet facility in this one also and its grounded by copper rods against EMP. I buried a 305 gallon water tank next to it (bleach) included and the nozzle is not inside because i did not want to make many cuts in the steel that I would have to re weld in order to prevent EMP waves to penetrate it, but I attached a hose in a convenient place and capped it. I have 55 gallon drums of water inside it also so I have back up. OK , I know you don't want to go that far. Its the extremist in me that gets carried away and I have had time to do this although it could all be done in 1 week. My Photos tell many stories of hard labor.

After it was done I thought why didn't i dig out a ditch under it and install a false floor also. That works great if you have a above ground structure also like a goat shed or barn. Remember the stories of the moonshiners having rooms under barns? The Andy Griffith show had a episode like that with a moon shiner yada yada chicken gave the hiding spot away. Damn, I need to remember that no chickens!

I also thought of having a large cement septic installed then using it as a shelter instead but that would cost to much. My land is surrounded by like minded people who are full of ideas also. I hear rumor of their installations but we don't discuss location among ourselves. Not now at least. The Indians have good under ground shelter information but you have to have some tuff ground to carve those.

Its all become somewhat of a hobby over the years. Its been a learning experience being a single 40 ish woman. I think its harder because the darn men fight me all the way. Ask your wife about that!

I am sure I left out so many things I have learned and have done on this issue. Please ignore any spelling issues.

I will email when I get rich.

So far, this one sounds the best - simple hole in ground, cover with trees - have a couple down that are seasoned and big (we're talking 42" diameter oak straight) but that brings its own set of problems.  Don't care how healthy the tractor is, that is a LOT or weight and our local wimpy chainsaws (24" bar) ain't gonna work, so another tool rental... but such goes life.

 

Still, building our own would be a lot of real work, something I asiduously avoid whenever possible.  A reader (who may have figured out this personality quirk of mine) pointed me to the Popular Mechanics article from last year on what's out there in the way of ready-made bomb shelters.  My thinking is that if they'll keep a nuke out, they would keep out all but the largest of Texas-sized tornados and because they're well-designed, they would likely keep out snakes and other vermin. 

 

Interestingly, we have a couple of spots on the property which already have ravines (feeding into the creek) and it would be really simple (at least in some ways) to simply clean out one of them, put the logs over 15-20 feet of ravine, cover with pond liner and then push dirt...that's the most appealing so far, EXCEPT there's  bound to be all manner of wild life in the hillside and that gets me back to the "snakes don't tunnel through 6" of concrete too readily...

 

Modified version of the concept?

"Here is an idea that I have been working on for an underground space. being somewhat handy, this falls within my skill range.

* dig a hole - 8 ft deep (or deeper ), x 9'wide x 20' long * put plastic on the ground to pour concrete onto, it keeps the water from comming thru the concrete * pour a 4" thick concrete slab with some rebar sticking up on the edges * lay concrete block around the perimeter to about 4 or 5 ft high. depending on how nice you want it to feel inside * make sure you continue some of the rebar sticking several inches above the 4' high wall. * put plastic on the outside of the blocks and backfill. this makes the sides stronger for the next step * get a very large steel culvert - the kind that you would find going under a road in the forest or freeway. an 8' x 10' long culvert is 923.40. to have it 'ripped' in half lengthways is 62.00 to have it delivered to my house is 80.00. * this gives you an arched roof, setting on the concrete block walls. by backfilling the sides, the pressure pushing out from the arched roof will not cause the 'walls' to push out, and the roof should hold its shape. * put some concrete blocks at the ends to fill in. you may want to build a partial wall in the center where the two shells come together. * put pond liner (it comes 15' wide) and should be able to extend down the sides a bit. * cover with dirt.

It will need a few things like a method to get in, and concrete over the top (say 3 or 4 inches with rebar and wire mesh over the culvert material would be best, even that pumice crete they use on apartment 2nd floors to dampen noise would be good between the rubber pond liner and teh steel shell). This is not a weekend project, but it should provide a safe place. Never seen it done, don't count on me for engineering services, build and inhabit at your own risk. It is left as an exercise to the student, to add shelving, LED lighting, white foam insulation, a waste/toilet pipe in the floor, water coming in, ham radio antenna, and internet web cams so you can see whats going on outside your 'root cellar'..."

By now your Cheerios are soggy, you've got Punch! Home & Landscape Design Professional with NexGen Technology fired up and you're going to waste the whole day, or you're looking nervously at the clock wondering "How long can this George-clown go on?  I've gotta job to do...Sheesh!"

 

I can take a hint, but than you all for the marvelous input! I'll include this discussion in the next update of our eBook "How to Live on $10,000 a year...or less..."

 

Did I mention to be sure and look at Craigslist for the "materials" section?  All kinds of cheap building materials there if you're patient.  I've come to favor the incomplete project excuse "Waiting on materials" but Elaine's started to notice that McMaster-Carr seems to get me important stuff (radio or shop related) overnight by 10 AM next day, as does Amazon, TigerDirect, TexasTowers, the Wireman and the local lumberyard. 

 

"Waiting on material, dear..."  Don't tell her...just shut the hell up and learn.  Especially if you're under 40.  It's like this:  Construction is work.  Construction delays are an art form.

 

Quip-O-The Day

From a reader who 'got it' about my long rant Tuesday morning about how the US Savings rate is part myth and part reality:

"Hey George.

Ain’t the individual tax payer a “cash basis” tax payer?!

Then why…[the authors are correct] ”Unrealized capital gains should not be included in the definition of saving as they simply represent returns on past saving activity, which has already been accounted for.” Should the topic even be considered by the Fed bosses?!?! But it is basic beyond basic. Cash payers can not claim unrealized capital gains!!! “We” are not accrual basis tax payers for screaming out loud!

Corrupt screw balls.":

See how polite our readers are?  Slapstick government and corrupt screwballs...almost sounds like a Mel Brooks movie title.  Which would be fun, except it's being filmed in stages and shown on the news channels.

 

Still, we continue our never wavering support for America, the Constitution and all other endangered species.

 

Brain Teaser

Reader wonders how come no English words rhyme with month, orange, silver, or purple.

 

Questions like this one prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that we're in a Depression and people are starting to think again.  Damn...that's dangerous!

 

---

Tuesday August 3, 2010

Rally Almost Done?  Or Going Higher?

The rest of this week should tell the tale on the market: whether it will start breaking down from here, or whether there really is a new bull in the wings somewhere.  A note from Robin Landry (who you'll recall was looking for 10,650 to complete the bounce rally) which was sent out to his colleagues in the investment community on Monday after the close sums up the situation this way:

"The Dow has reached the bottom of my target area of 10,650 to 10,800 and it is now the first week of August. Time cycles say the market should top the first half of August. The wave count appears complete unless it extends to the top of my target range over the next few days. If my count is correct, we should see the market top in this area over the next few days and then turn down in earnest toward my target of 8100 +- 100 points. If the market rallies much beyond the 10,800 area, then my wave count is wrong, and I will send out a new update with the new count. I still believe this is a bear market rally, but there are a couple alternate counts which allow for more upside and I will give then if needed. As always questions or comments are welcome. I will answer as time allows.  rlandry@allegiance.tv

I posted a note for Peoplenomics.com subscribers today on what I'm doing in my personal account.  No, this is not trading advice - just in keeping with my idea that anyone who talks, writes about the market (or is one of TV's 'talking heads') really oughta 'put it out there' so people can figure out whether they are blowing smoke and if they believe (to the point of putting their own money on the table) in the crap they write about.

 

I'm back to dead even for the year, although several readers have opined that "When George thinks about becoming a Bull, the end of the Rally is at Hand..."

---

Another reader sent me a chart of the Volatility Index and the simple note "pennant flag pattern".

 

You can read up here on  how such chart patterns are supposed to work, although I find that if I drink enough adult beverage to the point where my eyes cross and the room spins, that helps me see the patterns.  Fortunately, the markets are usually closed when I get around to such "analysis" and my handwriting by them is usually incomprehensible the next day when the markets open and the aspirin kicks in, so I don't trade on them.

 

Early on, the Euro markets were mixed and the futures not going much of anywhere, so this could be part of a sideways pattern.

 

Robin Handler (yep, different Robin) who run the Option Signal Service here, is eyeing around Aug. 13th as a possible turn date.  Free weekly newsletter here.

 

One other thing to be aware of:  If you click on a 5-day chart of the Dow from Yahoo...do you see the huge volume spikes (lower chart area) at the end of the trading day?  Best I can figure, that's when the machine trades - which make up something 'where north of 90% of the market action lately) are unwound.  I talked to Robin (Landry) about this and it is apparently something which has been building for several months. 

 

The question - and I don't see much discussion of this - is whether these huge spikes in machine trades can/will/or are screwing up traditional methods of analysis...and if so...which way? 

 

Haven't seen the talking heads taking that one on...and they don't usually mention that high frequency trading is stepping in front of customer orders by a few milliseconds and is a crooked racket...got to be a class action suit in their for an aspiring finance lawyer...good luck finding one.

 

So much for the trading aspects of the market...let's move on to the drivers  of market action.

 

The Massive Healthcare Construction Spree

Let's begin with the Construction Spending Report from the Census Bureau out Monday because this one outlines how the happy-talk media works just brilliantly.

 

We begin our exploration by looking at the various headlines that accompanied the Monday data release.  An optimist can find words like "Unexpected increases", a moderate can find "remained flat in June" and the marginally manic short-holding bears can find "Construction spending declines in June..."

 

Well, crap, you're thinking...which was it -REALLY?

 

Well, as usual, we go to the data here.  The first thing we see (top right) in the report is that while Construction spending was up a whopping 1-10th of one percent from May, the real deal is that it's down 7.9% compared with 2009.  Got that?  DOWN 7.9% from just one year ago.

 

Worse: Private Construction (data here) is down 10% compared with year-ago levels.

 

Happy-Talk point:  Private Residential ex rentals and vacant) was up 11.7% compare with 2009.  Fine...BUT even here, let's stay off the sauce long enough to notice that even so, current levels are running 42% of what they were in 2006 (!!!) and that's before the People's Economist  brings up the little matter of inflation effects which might make the picture what, 10% worse than even that?

Non-residential was flat compared with May but big picturing here, that's down 25% compared with year ago numbers - and worse - down 33.8% compared with 2008.

 

Even public construction, which was up 1.5% compared with May was really down 4.1% compared with year ago levels so whoever was writing about how government spending was up on construction has a grasp of time sequence numbers shorter than my petchewzelwhacker.

 

State and local spending is down 5.5% year-on-year.

 

This leaves only federal spending on construction up dramatically and you know where that was?  Go to the data here and scroll down to the line item for HEALTHCARE - which was up 42%(!!!) compared to year-ago levels.

 

Holy freakin smokes!  No wonder Healthcare Reform had to go through - going through money like a house afire building federal healthcare facilities.

 

Wonder how much of that is office space for the new expanded everyone's a doctor economy?  OK, so only $3.5 billion...chump change to bailer-outers...but you see my point?

 

Let me spell it out again:  The truth is out there.  It's just we ain't getting it straight from the MainStreamMedia.  42% increase in federal healthcare construction is the only thing between us and recognizing a Depression in Construction.  It's not that hard to figure out.  What IS hard to figure out is why no one else its screaming this from the rooftops.  Except, of course, I don't own networks that are in bed with the PowersThatBe.  Small detail, that.

 

I put 42% and 42.4%  into the Google search engine.  No stories on construction spending showed up.  I rest my case.  Next?

 

Personal Savings Statistical Disaster

Here's the latest on this front - new personal consumption/expenditure data, hot off the press release:

"Personal income increased $3.0 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $5.1 billion, or less than 0.1 percent, in June, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $2.9 billion, or less than 0.1 percent. In May, personal income increased $40.5 billion, or 0.3 percent, DPI increased $36.9 billion, or 0.3 percent, and PCE increased $8.6 billion, or 0.1 percent, based on revised estimates.

Real disposable income increased 0.2 percent in June, compared with an increase of 0.4 percent in May. Real PCE increased 0.1 percent, compared with an increase of 0.2 percent.

Private wage and salary disbursements decreased $5.2 billion in June, in contrast to an increase of $19.2 billion in May. Goods-producing industries' payrolls decreased $8.9 billion, in contrast to an increase of $10.4 billion; manufacturing payrolls decreased $6.0 billion, in contrast to an increase of $7.8 billion. Services-producing industries' payrolls increased $3.7 billion, compared with an increase of $8.8 billion. Government wage and salary disbursements decreased $0.6 billion, in contrast to an increase of $7.0 billion. The decline in the number of temporary workers for Census 2010 subtracted $3.4 billion at an annual rate from federal civilian payrolls in June; the hiring of additional temporary workers had added $5.7 billion at an annual rate in May.

And the knee-slapper part is?

Personal saving -- DPI less personal outlays -- was $725.9 billion in June, compared with $713.9 billion in May. Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income was 6.4 percent in June, compared with 6.3 percent in May.

Yeah, sure, you betcha...

 

Lookie here: The definitions of what makes up personal savings was changed a couple of years ago and the kind of thinking that led to it was discussed by Guidolin and La Jeunesse in a Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis article in Nov/Dec 2007, the NIPA accounts include unrealized capital gains and then they admit:

"A few economists have taken issue with this broad definition of a “true” saving rate, ˆ st+1, arguing that only realized capital gains should be considered. Three motivations are offered. Unrealized capital gains should not be included in the definition of saving as they simply represent returns on past saving activity, which has already been accounted for. In many cases, simple appreciation of existing assets (e.g., houses) fails to create new productive assets. The fact that unrealized gains fail (by definition) to be transformed into cash resources that allow households (or other agents that borrow from households) to acquire physical, productive capital stock should (consistent with current BEA practices) dissuade analysts from using capital gains altogether. Furthermore, it has been observed that a large portion of unrealized capital gains tends to arise in the presence of volatile “bubbling” conditions (e.g., the stock market boom of the late 1990s and possibly the housing price surge of 2002-05); as such, these gains have to remain unrealized almost by definition— if households tried to cash them in, they would cause the bubble to burst, causing the capital gains to vanish.10 Therefore it is debatable whether such unstable components should be considered as part of private saving. Third, in the empirical literature, considerable debate persists as to what fraction of such unrealized capital gains might be actually increasing saving (the complement of the so-called “wealth effect” on consumption)." (pp.496-497)

My take on this is that yes, the NIPA accounts understated personal savings during a time when home equity was rapidly appreciating, but the larger point (that much of house appreciation was in fact due to high inflation levels levered by real estate) was that  now that home equity is falling like a free-falling safe, where's the backward correction to wipe out past savings?

 

Ain't none, near as I can figure.  The illusion of having home equity as a part of savings (albeit unrealized) is left on the books which is how economic history gets so screwed up.

 

So even if you didn't save a dime in 2006, you might have (for calculation's sake) had a 7% savings rate (unrealized home equity gain) showing on the books, but when you lost your home to foreclosure, short sale, or deed in lieu of foreclosure, no one is going back and saying "OMG, that savings rate was a lie!" since you really didn't end up with any savings from 2006.

 

The historical numbers just sit there, Easter Island monolith-like, hiding ugly secrets, and damn anyone who asks about them.  Probably just as well, since the mythical home equity from 2006 may have been the basis of a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) that actually contributed something to spending kind of like savings...and yeah, it's a big statistical ugly.  Screw it...brain's hurting.  On to lighter fare...

 

How About This?

"Lindsay Lohan - the Secret Jailhouse Hobby"?

---

No, lighter fare, not frivolous verging on...  still Lohan topped Google News' list a few minutes ago. 

---

All of which causes me to wonder if democracy makes sense...selling politicians like to soap can't really lead to good government, can it?

 

Bad News Tim

You KNOW the unemployment rate Friday is going the wrong way when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is already apologizing for it in advance.....doing just that today on Good Morning America. 

 

Oh, oh...I almost feel partly responsible for pointing out we can't keep shrinking the workforce arbitrarily - someone besides me might notice how that works.
 

Newsweek for a Buck?

What did Newsweek sell for?  The DailyBeast is reporting it went for a dollar (plus assumption of liabilities).  Interesting read...

 

Politics As Usual

A group of republicorp senators has issued a report slamming waste in the so-called stimulus plan.

 

But wait!  Has it occurred to any of these geniuses that their hands aren't clean on this since the republicorps and the Bushies drove the economy into Depression to start with?  Anyone remember the economy was already tanking besides us?

---

Cities are continuing to close down services in Depression 2.0 fashion - including Philadelphia where rotating firehouse closures are underway.

 

No incumbents, no way.

 

Attack on Farmers

Now EPA is looking at new regulations on farm dust.  A group of senators is asking what's up with that.

---

Say, where was EPA in the Gulf when BP was spilling 200+ million gallons of oil?  Say, not to be a horse-behind here, but how come the COREXIT Manufacturers Safety Data Sheet says "No toxicity studies have been conducted on this product."?  Aren't issues like product safety as much an EPA missing and farm dust?  Just sayin....

 

Road To War

Israel and Lebanon and playing shoot 'em up.  Think of this as foreplay for more to come in that part of the world...

 

Militants keep closing in on Pakistan, too, killing 45 there overnight.

 

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Coping: Computational Catch-Up

Since sales, marketing and operations consulting has gotten to be less of a workload (economy cratering and all) I decided to spend some available time this week updating various 'things and stuff' that has been piling up on my 'web site to-do list".  Some of these items may impact you - others won't - but you may find it interesting because there are so many 'moving parts' under the hood of this here machine.  It may give you some things to update your work/employer web site, too...

 

Back-Up System:  The price of 1-TB drives is now incredibly cheap and the main data around here is backed up overnight every day - and this is on top of the redundant on site back-up system.  In terms of ulcer elimination (worries about lost data) I can't recommend highly enough picking up one (or more) of these huge drives and then every so often going through and deleting out-dated backups.

 

DMOZ Listing:  I have been trying for years to get UrbanSurvival listed in the Open Directory Project - and amazingly unsuccessful at it.  If you have any clues why a site like UrbanSurvival can't seem to get listed, I'd sure appreciate some ideas.  Yeah, the ideas around here are a little 'out there' but this site has been around since the late 1990's and gets more than 50,000 page views per day - which I think (help me if I'm wrong here) is an indication that someone is interested in a cynical, skeptical, monetaristic long wave economic take on the world and if you can help me figure out how to get listed in DMOZ that's sure be nice.

 

Traffic Stats:  As long as we're on statistics and such, UrbanSurvival served up 165,900 users who visited 721,281 times in July 1.74-million pages which totaled 8.412-million 'hits' and gobbled down 228.7 GB of bandwidth.  Not bad for a single month.

 

New .CO Extensions:  In an effort to keep up with changing extensions on the net, I've gotten www.urbansurvival.co  and www.peoplenomics.co and they're in the process of being set up to point at the two sites.  If you have a business or a blog, you may wish to consider getting the .CO domain handle - since it may be a while before site blockers in the workplace pick those up.  Or not...

 

MOBILE (.MOBI) Page:  By request, I've gone back to the daily post of UrbanSurvival as a .MOBI (special file for mobile devices) which can now be found at www.urbansurvival.com/Mobile/week.mobi if everything goes right.  A number of readers missed the feature, so it's back.  One said not having the MOBI file really cut into his productivity - and besides, now if you have an iPhone, UrbanSurvival should be easy to get to...just scroll down since how to make .MOBI-compatible graphics makes my head hurt.

 

New Tabs, Not New Sessions:  Somehow, the www.peoplenomics.com site had "open as new tab" shut off accidentally, so that feature is turned on again...thanks for point it out.  Remember, there's an option in most browsers to open pages in a new tab instead of a new session of the program and you can usually find it in your browser's tools or settings area.

 

Peoplenomics Payment System:  A number of users said they didn't want to have a PayPal account, so the sign-up process for Peoplenomics now includes instructions on how to send a check for the $40 annual membership/access.

 

Site Map:  The number of pages of UrbanSurvival is going up dramatically since I started using the CoffeeCup Software site mapper program (www.coffeecup.com). I'm still having a few issues with the program 'hanging' but that could have something to do with have somewhere north of 3,000 pages of web site to be munched.  Having a site map for your site is very search-engine friendly; most blog software does it automatically, I'm not a great fan of blogging software, although UrbanSurvival is also available in blog format at www.urbansurvival.com/blog/.  Some people like that kind of layout, others don't - matter of choice, I suppose.  Long term, I think plain old HTML works...but I'm a distance cousin of Ned Ludd.

 

A lot of check-list items, and no doubt some of then will be useful where you work - especially the .MOBI/Mobile devices part, since handheld devices like Blackberries and iPhones now outnumber conventional computers something like 4 to 1 - so a mobile devices strategy is for-sure something to bring up in your company meetings about web site improvements, if'n you don't have one.

 

Underground Room

Oh boy!  I have gotten about a zillion great responses to the Monday question about the Underground House/Room idea.  Elaine found our copy of the $50 and Up Underground House book and a couple of more...so deep into those.

 

Tomorrow, I will have a really long section on the underground house/root cellar / tornado bug-out room, but something else has popped up which is causing me to rethink this:  Scorpions.

 

For some reason here in the past couple of weeks, I have seen more scorpions around here than I have ever seen before.  Elaine says it's because we have done so much digging in the earth in the past year. You may remember we replaced 600-feet of waterline coming into the house plus we dug in a new septic system for the 'office' building.  Way she's got it figured, we disturbed the earth too much and that's where scorpions live...

 

My own intuition about them is that its from finally having an average water year around here.  Normal rainfall is 25.14" for the year to date and we're at 23.43 - so close enough.

 

I've been researching the natural enemies of the scorpions and I think I found it and we'll be buying one soon:  A visit from the Orkin man.

---

$5 word of the day, by the way popped out of my scorpion research:  telson.  Aha!  That's the last part of the scorpion where the venom glands live.  Would make a fine license plate for the highly literate...not exactly an everyday word and I used to consider myself well read.  Ha!

 

Around the Ranch: Deer Sanctuary

A ham radio friend of mine called the other day and wanted to drop by to sight in a new rifle. "No sweat..." I said.  However, since we made those plans I've gotten to thinking about it....had a change of heart.

 

The property around the ranch here is just teeming with deer this year - in fact we had a couple munching last evening along the edge of the house - they're that tame.  Sighting in a rifle is going to make noise and it could be months before the deer return.  Naw...gonna cancel the sighting in session...

---

Load of tractor parts is due in at the local Kubota dispensary tomorrow.   The short version of the story is "land clearing is hard on tractors".  The even shorter version is $193.  The long version is about what happens when you bush hog  land and  sheered off 1½" splinters go poking all around the tractor...stick into the engine compartment and so on.

 

Email of the Day

From a fellow bear who got stopped out on Monday:

"It seems to me every time I use a darned hard stop, I get stopped out only to watch the market turn back and go the way I had thought it would have. It pisses me off a bit, not that I lost some cash but that the dam stop got hit only to watch the market go the way I had wanted.

So basically I'm saying since I was stopped out yesterday in some sort of mystery market bump, because all of a sudden the world is all rosy, today the market will fall. I think I'll just take a bat to my computer and be done with it lol."

You ever wonder why I go through so many computers around here?  Here, use mine.

 

---

Monday August 2, 2010

Things Are Looking UP

I may be taking a short vacation from my bearish short positions for a while due to all the good-natured optimism about and a desire NOT to lose money, but it will be a tough call.  For one thing, the latest charts show the Dow is trying to move to a bullish position and while the second half of August may bring substantial downside, especially around the *** 25th *** when linguistics expect a big, global, something to happen, there's another 10-days, or so, of upside left and we may very well hit Robin Landry's 10,650 level.

 

Let's run through some of the 'what's UP' data:  Starting with what turns out to have been a 'solar quake" - not an Earthquake.  A note from the folks who run www.spaceweather.com summed up Sunday's event this way:

"During the early hours of August 1st, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a complex global disturbance on the Earth-facing side of the sun. Most of the sun's northern hemisphere was involved in the event, which included a long-duration C3-class solar flare, a "solar tsunami," and a massive filament eruption. As a result of these blasts, a coronal mass ejection (CME) is heading toward Earth.

No doubt you'll want to be checking the www.spaceweather.com site for the next several days because while initial indications were that this Earth-directed coronal mass ejection would show up tomorrow (Aug. 3) a later PRESTO Alert offered this:

"A frontsided halo CME erupted on August 1 around 08:00 UT, SOHO data was not available at the time but STEREO data show that this event should arrive to the Earth around August 5. It was related to the C3.2 flare from NOAA AR 11092 and to a large filament eruption in the northern solar hemisphere."

Although the science of how the relationship between coronal mass ejections and earthquakes is debatable, it would not surprise me to see a 7.0 to larger (8.2 is where the first dart of the day landed) by the end of this week.  Sometimes, when things are looking UP, it's bad.

---

Clif of www.halfpasthuman.com has posted a note that the next "Shape of Things To Come" report (#7) has been delayed indefinitely [Universe intrudes, rudely], but we've gotten enough of a peak at the data to circle August 25th on the calendar for the emergence of a globally shocking event, although it may be a day or two before we figure out (based on simple summation values) which entity this pops out of...and there's much else going on to be concerned with.

 

That said, the kind of thing - not a prediction, just an example here - of the kind of thing that could be large enough to fill the August 25th release language might be something like an earthquake that damages or 'takes out' the Three Gorges Dam in China. 

 

As you're undoubtedly aware, the peak of water levels behind the dam hit all-time records this past weekend due to recent rains and flooding, and now there are miles of garbage & trash washing toward the dam...and not sure what can be done to prevent it from clogging the works.

 

Keeping in mind that Three Gorges is the biggest concrete structure in the world and that concrete takes up to 12-years to reach its peak strength, and that we are in this earthquake window which could (wild, unfounded speculation here) cause a quake in the vicinity of the dam which in turn could cause a catastrophic failure...well, that's the kind of event that might show up in Clif's data as a 'global release event' and I don't think I need to tell you how many millions of people in China, not to mention all their manufacturing is Three Gorges dependent. 

 

Standing downstream of Three Gorges and looking UP is not somewhere I'd want to be for a while...

---

Our curious linguistic link between weddings and quakes continues unabashed.  While Clinton daughter Chelsea got married this weekend, the Universe winked with a smallish 3.0 quake 8-miles east of Clinton Louisiana.

 

Or, do we blame this on the BP spill?

 

Numbers for the Week

There's a lot to look forward to:  Construction Spending this morning, which is expected to be weak...how weak is the question more than 'if' it'll be weak.  A peak at the chart here from the Calculated RISK site, shows 30.6% of homeowners are upside-down. Doesn't seem like a reason to run out, buy a Skil saw and start putting up more housing exactly, does it?

 

Tomorrow we get Personal Income which is always fun, especially the part where I apply the ViceGrips to my forearm (pinching myself) as we read the latest (largely mythical) Savings Rate.  I assume you have watched the 2007 presentation by Elizabeth Warren "The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class"?  Well, its showing up in the here and now...

 

Wednesday the ADP employment report comes out, then Thursday has the weekly unemployment rate, but the Biggies will be Friday when the unemployment rate comes out and then at 3 PM Eastern when the Fed publishes the Consumer Debt report.

 

The Consumer Metrics Institute data doesn't seem to hold any cause for celebration...as a check of their charts here underscores.

 

Against this background (and the Consumer Debt numbers coming Friday) some folks are still calling Treasuries a buy.  My part gold/silver, part Treasuries  position has been a dandy - allows me to sleep soundly. Inflation or deflation, I've hedged best I can....

 

Case For Martial Law?

Despite the market futures being up somewhat in the early going, and a generally positive tone out of Europe, the socioeconomic picture in America doesn't seem conducive to long-term optimism.  Take, for example, the reports that East St. Louis laying of 30% of its police force may let criminals run wild.

 

But it's not just East St. Louis.  It's whole states like California where thousands upon thousands of state workers will be getting three days off without pay.  Massachusetts has its hands full with budget cuts, too. 

 

I won't trouble you with a whole laundry-list of state and local budget issues, but I think it's worth pointing out a couple of things. The first is that despite the almost universal budget issues, states are continuing to embrace tax holidays due to voter pressure.

 

The other thing is to wonder how far the US Army's NORTHCOM has gone in developing contingency plans to keep domestic law and order, depending on how far the nation sinks into Depression 2.0?  Extremely tough policy question, that one.  We'll be watching to see how East St. Louis fares and other localities which are having to cut vital services.

---

Still, a reasonable question to be asking is "How much money does government have if their comprehensive annual Financial reports (CAFR's) are inspected?  Folks like Walter Burien have been asking that question for a long time, and a visit to his site now and then broadens one's perspective on just how deep the government's pockets are when everything is put out on the table.

 

Afghanistan Drags Out

But it will have to do so without the Dutch - they're tossing in the towel.  First NATO country to do so.

 

And, despite the promises, the folks in Washington don't seem to be planning major force reductions until 2011...which - bet me - seems more likely by 2012 or who knows how long?

 

Raul: Back to Enterprising

Good story from Breitbart which you may want to put on your reading list about how Raul Castro is moving Cuba back in the direction of entrepreneurship.  Seems Cuba's government is not the be-all, end-all worker's friend, after all...so more self-employment will be allowed.

---

Curious how we're going the other way with business-choking 1099'ing plans wiggled into the healthcare reform bill...Cuba goes one way, we go the other - who'da thought?

 

Dribbling Away Rights

Changes to the Miranda warning are about to go into effect.  Yes, you still have a right to remain silent and to an attorney, but if you don't know your rights, it's going in the direction of 'too bad'...

 

War Time

OK, August 25?  November 8-12?  Whenever it is, the word out this weekend is that the US has an Iran attack plan set.  Ever wonder where Congress is?  Last time I checked they had war-making powers, but that was in the old days I suppose...with the economy is the shredder, guess more war is one route to recovery, or so seems Washington-think...

 

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Coping:  About Them UFO's

there's a new book which is about to make it to the top of my reading list called UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record by Leslie Kean.

 

While the book won't be released until the 10th, the advance press on it seems pretty good.  This little morsel from the Amazon write-up in particular:

"An Air Force major is ordered to approach a brilliant UFO in his Phantom jet over Tehran. He repeatedly attempts to engage and fire on unusual objects heading right toward his aircraft, but his missile control is locked and disabled. Witnessed from the ground, this dogfight becomes the subject of a secret report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.

In Belgium, an Air Force colonel investigates a series of widespread sightings of unidentified triangular objects, and he sends F-16s to attempt a closer look. Many hundreds of eyewitnesses, including on-duty police officers, file reports, and a spectacular photograph of an unidentifiable craft is retrieved and analyzed.

Here at home, a retired chief of the FAA’s Accidents and Investigations Division reveals the agency’s response to a thirty-minute encounter between an aircraft and a gigantic UFO over Alaska, which occurred during his watch and is documented on radar."

I've seen a few 'oddities' in the sky, but nothing that didn't have an alternative explanation, but still one reptilian encounter from my youth (a bad dream in waking state, maybe?) has kept the topic open.  I also know a few folks who have been through the whole 'missing time' and seen what they tell me were real UFO's.

 

My interest in UFO's waned between age 13 and about 1998, or so.  But then came along Col. Philip Corso's book The Day After Roswell.  That got me to thinking about the topic once again, and so with Kean's book coming out, laced with what seem like extremely credible reports, I feel compelled to read it.

 

The main problem, having never seen a UFO first-hand, is reading the best available evidence and then deciding where to put one's personal beliefs.  At the one extreme, until someone shows up with a hunk of 'memory metal" - the stuff from the Roswell crash that could supposedly be wadded up like aluminum foil, but would bounce right back to its original shape - I could say "T'ain't real!

 

At the other extreme, I suppose there are those who believe the YouTube video purporting to be a Roswell alien autopsy was real.

 

The video is an interesting tale, in itself.  While there are some who admit the video was faked, there's also the story about that it was faked because a real alien autopsy video was not...but it has not been recovered.

 

Summertime into mid fall is a great time for sky-watching, and it's when sightings of irregular stuff upstairs seems to hit its peak, although famous cases like the Stephenville, Texas UFO siting (January 8, 2008) do also happen in winter.

 

So, while I wait for dark later on this month - armed with nightvision goggles to go looking for unexplained whatever's in space visible only with late model nightvision, the Kean book sure sounds like fun.

 

Around the Ranch: Hot Times

The weather here in East Texas is now in the peaking part of summer heat.  Although we were well over 100º F yesterday, it wasn't much worse that most of the 95º degree days because the humidity was relatively low.  Since we got back from our trip out west, neither Elaine or I have gotten up the nerve to head up into the garden, which thanks to a great year of rainfall, seems to be more jungle-like than usual.

 

As soon as this morning's column is done, though, plan is for me to head up with a weed whacker and see if I can get to the tomato plants.  Panama reported that while we were gone several cantaloupes got past edible, and were fed to the wild life...a move now doubt applauded by the coyotes.

 

Zeus the cat has been spending about half his time under the front deck where it's fairly cool during the day and the rest of the time on the area rug in my office in front of the air conditioner.  Puscilla, our other cat, has taken to sleeping on the sunroof of Elaine's car in the carport.

 

Client workload has become quite light lately, no doubt a reflection of the economy and fewer small to mid-sized businesses wanting to expand, although during recessions is a dandy time to build market share.

 

So slow are things that I can see wood on most of the counters in my office nowadays, the floor is vacuumed and even fresh bug traps out...catching the summer assortment of scorpions, daddy longlegs, crickets, and even a couple of baby snakes about 3-inches long.

 

The last of the house projects oughta be finished off in a week or two - and that will leave space on the calendar for another 'big' construction project.  I've got Elaine searching the library for The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book which seems to have gone missing in action.

 

Hot weather and watching the cats has reminded me that we could really use an underground room for a couple of reasons.  First (and most obvious) is that we're at the edge of Tornado Alley here and we've lost dozens of trees in the past to high winds.  And underground shelter seems like a good idea.

 

Then there's the no-cooling required aspect of an underground house / storm room/ vegetable cellar.  Dug-in next to a shaded area, it is possible to live semi-underground without air conditioning.  Or, digging in a couple of hundred feet of PVC pipe and a small DC fan to get 'free AC from nature.

 

I've asked one of our new in-laws (a civil engineer) for input on what's the cheapest way to build...thinking post & beam on a 6' grid, but engineering ideas are welcome.  Buried school bus is out, since I don't know where to get one, although a cheap RV might be of interest.

 

If you've ever wanted to spend some time noodling how to do an underground house cheap (something that would be down 3-4 feet and would provide earth-cooling) please send along ideas...quest is on and the budget is $500-$1,000...not counting finishing.  Just talking structure here. 

 

Thanks...