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Waiting On Daylight

If I get everything on my weekend project list done, it will be a miracle.  Like most days, this one starts off with a cup of coffee and a short planning session, but without the interruption (back-saving at that) of consulting work, I tend to spend a LOT less time in front of the PC and a lot more time on the business end of power tools are on the tractor.  Today's list includes burning trash, hooking up my new dust collector system in the shop, bush hogging a fence line for a new field for the goats which means multiple rolls of 4x4" goat fence at $200 a pop, but better now than wait for steel prices to go up even further.

 

On the business end of power tools, there's the finishing off the porch roof on the north side of the house where my eyeballed rafters are awaiting final assembly and placement.  The new steel roof panels I picked up yesterday ran $125 for six panels.  I really am trying to live by the things I report here, and the comments on the major hardware coop passing on word to its member stores that higher steel prices are in the pipeline from China was not lost on me; we're pushing up all our plans that involve steel as fast as we can get them scheduled and done.

 

Being on the business end of a hammer is a good way to work out frustrations.  Like the frustrations with Wall Street which is planning private meetings with Treasury officials to try and undo the push among congressional democorps to do more than the Street wants about the Housing Mess.  One reader suggested that I "...let everyone know that we are all safe in the arms of our corpgov..."  He politely didn't use the term 'bozo's' although he clearly wouldn't mind borrowing one of my hammers, either.

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The headline this morning about waiting for daylight has a particularly poignant double-meaning in the UK where it's being reported that British "Bank bail-outs to be kept secret" - meaning that the Bank of England is following the marching orders of the PTB while at the same time giving new meaning to the term 'hush money.'

 

The Runs: Jerry Day Nails It

If I had time, I'd do a long dissertation this morning on how the national MSM (MainStreamMedia) has been screwing over the Ron Paul campaign and marginalizing him to promote the corpgov slate of tweedle dumb, dumber, and dumbest.  But, since daylight is fast approaching, go watch the Jerry Day video instead - which nails it better than I can at this hour.

 

'Them Winds'

The spring continues to run well ahead of previous years in terms of tornado activity.  The latest headlines mention that "Twisters tear up parts of 4 states; 7 killed in Arkansas."

 

Markets: Traders and other Indicators

I'm expecting the Dow to pause for a while in here, or plain old recede, thanks to a technical divergence from the Dow Transports, which were down on Friday two-thirds of a percent.  Dow Theory supposes that where go the Transports, so goes the rest of the market sooner than later.

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Meantime, I'm more than partly perplexed by the report that "Futures Trader Bet on dollar gain for first time since 2005."  I mean that makes sense as far as it goes.

 

Where it doesn't go, however, is to the story that "Gulf states may end dollar pegs, Kuwait minister says." or this one: " Dollar peg causes 18% of U.A.E. inflation, Business 24/7 says".

 

Seems to me that someone's got it wrong - seriously wrong, but we should know the answer within 6-months.

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The best guess from a Saturday morning in May with a second cup of coffee going and daylight starting to appear over the trees, is that the dollar might well rally (or hold about these levels in here) through the August Olympics in Beijing.  That will appease China which is holding gobs and oodles of US paper.

 

In fact, nothing would please me more than for the price of gold to come back down to year-ago levels around $700-750 because that would be when yours truly would trying to figure a way to trade more paper for gold, along with other things that will be needed after the ME war(s) this summer into fall and the resulting economic collapse to follow from October to January.

 

Wheaties

Those wheat options I'm holding might come back to life yet: A May blizzard shuts down parts of South Dakota - weather is wonky for sure. 

 

The other story about wheat that has me considering investing in boxes of Wheaties is word that "Leaf Rust becoming Problem in Kansas Wheat".  This means our report Friday about Kansas wheat looking sickly may have legs to it - and this is one which could drive wheat futures skyward.  We'll see, huh?

 

Trashing Terra Department

I've mentioned that this was in the works before, but it's now here 'in your face' real: "All salmon fishing banned on West Coast."  We're going to have to put in a bigger safe for those collector-grade tins of canned salmon we've been investing in.

 

Witch Video?

The headline asks "Is UFO a flying human?"  Roll the video out of Mexico for yourself and tell me it doesn't look like a flying...witch!

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Enough!  Subscriber access problems to fix, inbox to clean, nails to hammer, fence lines to bush hog.  See yah Monday!  Unless, that is, you're a Peoplenomics subscriber, in which case, we'll be talking about an Extinction level Event on Sunday afternoon....

 

Peoplenomics.com

Micropreneuring and the Future of Mass Customization

A number of conferences have been held recently dealing with the general topic of “mass customization”. The main thrust of mass customization is that because an ever-increasing portion of manufacturing is software-driven, intuitively it should be possible to easily customize virtually any product. However, in some ways mass customization is encountering the same kinds of obstacles to widespread adoption that hamstrung the infant videotext field when it arose as precursor of the Internet. Therefore, to help identify obstacles to widespread use of ‘mass customization’ it’s useful to review why videotext didn’t ‘catch fire’ while the internet did. We’ll also discover why the evolution of software-defined radios (SDR’s) may help business evolve into what I call SDMC’s – software defined manufacturing companies.

 

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Tell Your Friends About This Site!

If you know anyone who is interested in preserving the Constitution, fighting usury from banksters, and shaking off consumer hypnosis, tell them about this site.  Click here to send 'em an invite...

 

Mr. Cheap's Tricks

There are lots of ways to save money on food, shelter, transportation, and such.  It just takes a little reading and one source of good ideas is  our handy ebook "How to Live on $10,000 a year or less.  Still just $10.

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Last week's report is here.    For back issues of this site, click here.  (Goes back to 1997!)

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I promised Elaine that I would unload some of my equipment, so if you're looking for ham gear, especially the older tube-type (EMP resistant) type, send me a note and I will send out the list of what I'm selling off when I get it together.    Click here to  Put Me On Ham Gear List

 

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Friday May 2, 2008

The "George Rally" Continues

The long string of emails sent by dyed-in-the-wool bears from a couple of months back when I posted my expectation that the market would rally going into summer before collapsing in a heap this fall, are just about ready to be deleted because the market is siding with Ure, not the bears.

 

Headlines like "Wall Street mood swing: Gloom gives way to (premature?) optimism" pretty much hit the nail on the head.

 

In the "What goes up and what goes down" department, please observe that as the dollar goes up (for however brief a fling here), the price of oil is coming down.  "Oil prices lower in Asian afternoon trade on strengthening U.S. dollar" report those capitalist tools over at Forbes.

 

Coupled with the short term bounce, we have to pause here and size up the employment report out today from the Department of Labor:

"Nonfarm payroll employment was little changed in April (-20,000), following job losses that totaled 240,000 in the first 3 months of the year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The unem- ployment rate, at 5.0 percent, also was little changed in April. Employment continued to decline in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade, while jobs were added in health care and in professional and technical services.

Unemployment (Household Survey Data)

The number of unemployed persons (7.6 million) and the unemployment rate (5.0 percent) were little changed in April. A year earlier, the number of unemployed persons was 6.8 million, and the jobless rate was 4.5 percent. Over the month, the unemployment rates for most major worker groups--adult men (4.6 percent), teenagers (15.4 percent), whites (4.4 percent), blacks (8.6 percent), and Hispanics (6.9 percent)--showed little or no change. The jobless rate for adult women decreased to 4.3 percent in April, nearly off- setting an increase in the prior month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 3.2 percent (not seasonally adjusted) in April. "

How real are the numbers?  Well, the CES Birth-Death model contributed 267,000 jobs including 45-thousand new jobs in construction and an eye popping 83,000 in leisure/.hospitality and 72-thosuand in professional & business services.

 

Under employed in the U-6 table improved from 9.3% last month to 8.9% in the current report, all of which ought to fuel a skyrocket Dow today.

 

Meantime, a lot of business minds will be pondering the Microsoft-Yahoo deal asking if time is running out, or if things might go hostile.

 

Still Fighting Banking Panic

Maybe we should invent a new word: Banic - or maybe Pank! - a banking panic, which is what the Fed and European central banksters are trying to avert.  Word up.

 

Whining About Gold

Several people have written to me asking for an explanation of 'falling gold prices'.  I have said this before, but it bears repeating.  I am not planning to sell any precious metals until after the crash this fall and into next year) so please relax.

 

A trip to the chart repository over at Kitco should make a simple point.  Click the display for a historical gold price from May of '07 and May of this year.  Last year we were around $670 an ounce on this date.  This year we're staring at $852 and whining about it.

 

Let me refresh your thinking:  This is a 27% gain year on year while the market hasn't done bupkis by the Dow.  Fer heaven's sake, get over it.  I'm still holding my silver options  too, although it's a long shot.  I did buy a couple of September wheat calls this week, though.  Wonder why?  Read on...

 

Food Shortages Growing?

An email from a reader in the Midwest causes me some concern:

"Last night at the daughter's horse riding lesson the price of horse feed came between my wife & the stable owner/riding instructor. One of her friends in Kansas said that his winter wheat looked great, but there was no wheat in the wheat plant heads (kernel/seed-I don't know the correct term). He reported that the grain miller that they normally use said that they are having trouble getting any wheat to prepare. Same thing from many Kansas wheat growers; plants look great, but no wheat to harvest. This is a family business that has been going since early 1900s. They made it through 2 world wars & the dust bowl. They are not sure if they can survive this year if they can't locate some wheat for processing. Nothing to mill, nothing to grind. That doesn't bode well for later in the year.

I couldn't find anything online about this, but the riding instructor is pretty mainstream & doesn't seem to be a conspiracy buff. She said that the lack of harvestable wheat, when the plants look normal, has never been seen before."

This report touches on something I have already started to work on for Peoplenomics.com subscribers this weekend.  But, when I tell you there is growing urgency to starting a garden, I'm not a kidding...

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The commodities market apparently isn't worried as "Wheat falls below $8 as investors expect rate cut will be last" says one headline.  But, remember, fundamentals matter. and I am wildly bullish on grains and food stuffs.  This from the guy who told you in 2005 that he was buying silver at $7, remember?

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Overseas, people are a little more aware.  "Afghans face basic food shortages as wheat prices soar, UN says..."  And concerns about rice prices have the Philippines government working on a food self-sufficiency program.

 

My latest hot investment tip?  HERITAGE SEEDS!!! When governments and megacorps are opening seed vaults does that tell you something, or are you completely dumbed down?

 

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Coping: Feeling Lost?

"Ready to go feed the goats?" I asked Elaine.

 

"Yeah, but let me put on some lipstick, first..."

 

This is an example of why men sometimes get a sense of being 'lost' around women.  Turned out that E was not dressing up to feed goats per se; she was trying to keep her lips from getting dried out.  "Oh, that makes sense" I admitted, there being only one old goat that matters around here.

 

But that got us on the topic of "feeling lost" and her experience earlier in the week on the 'rabbit run' with the neighbor lady in a nice pickup equipped with a GPS system that seems to be the rage these days.

 

GPS has its place, no question about it.  Coming into Shilshole Bay Marina when we were living on the boat under 100 foot visibility with the radar and GPS going was a cinch, just like shooting a CAT 3 landing is a cinch with a HUD and lots of training.

 

But why everyone seems to have lost their sense of direction lately is beyond me.  True, on a dark rainy night in the East Texas outback where street signs are well hidden, they have their place.  But in a big city where people have lived more than 10-years?

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One of our major adjustments to life as Texans was to understand that signs like "Highway 155 turns left here" tend to be placed on the far side of the intersection where you should have turned.  In California, just for contrast,  freeway exits are often posted thousands of miles before the off ramp.

 

Perhaps its because some California exits, like the Barham St. exit coming up the hill from Hollywood, requires moving across as many as nine lanes of traffic.  In East Texas, there may not be another car around for weeks, let alone when you should be turning.  On the other hand, sign placement may constitute a local spectator sport that helps determine who is really from Texas, and who is not.

 

I can hear it now... "See that feller went sliding though the light ;sideways with his brakes locked up?  'nother outsider, I reckon..."

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Still, the need for GPS in a vehicle escapes me. Three years ago, when Elaine and I went out to Burbank for a studio project, we managed to find our way around LA without a GPS and only minimal use of the 2-meter radios.  You just looked at the hills and that was that.  If you had no hills around, you had slipped out of the San Fernando Valley, and were either in Orange County or Bakersfield.  But that was simple to sort out, too, because there are 31-million exit signs for Magic Mountain on the way to Bakersfield.

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Elaine's favorite and easiest to learn town was San Francisco.  Again, done entirely without a GPS.  "When you've got water on three sides, how lost can you get?" she figured.  True that.

 

And she didn't have any trouble with Boca Raton, Florida, either.  "Too far north and you're in Palm Beach, too far south and it's Miami.  Too far west and you're in the Everglades, and too far east and you're in the Atlantic."  Easy, obvious, and no GPS needed.

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Fire fighters, back in the old days, before massive computer dispatch systems used to have a tradition of 'walking the district'.  The firefighter would literally walk every street in a certain part of town, to learn where fire hydrants were, look at various buildings and consider the fire risks of each.  Mentally they'd ink through how a 'reverse lay of a two and a half'; by the second company in would work here or there.

 

It also gave time to think about things like the curious distribution of streets named after trees in downtown Seattle;  Alder, Pine, Fir, Cedar, Olive, and such.  There was also time to come up with mnemonics for how streets were arranged.  College boy Walked up the Hill to get a Plum might remind someone at Engine 13 that northbound from the station on Beacon Hill the streets are sequenced College, Walker, Hill, and Plum...

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In most cities, there are simple conventions for street names which are somehow closely held secrets in today's world.  Avenues tend many places to run north-south while streets run east-west.  Boulevards and lanes, meander; that kind of thing. Obvious when someone points it out to you, which the GPS salesman won't.

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Many cities have streets with 'last names' that give even more clues.  Streets often have a prefix before the street number, so in Seattle for example, a an address on NE45th St. would be an east-west street in the northeast quadrant of the city, while a nearby 15th Ave NE would have the NE as it's last name, so that if you didn't know that 'avenues' run north / south, you might still get the pattern.

 

Of course city planners, being only occasionally rational blessed Seattle with 1st Avenue North and 4th Avenue South, which are roughly between the NE and NW, or SW and Lake Washington because the SE streets are off in King County somewhere down around Renton or Kent.  Nevertheless, the fact that enough people could find their way to Boeing or Microsoft (or PACCAR if we find ourselves in Renton) attests to the superfluous nature of GPS systems in cars.

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Naturally, I don't expect the education system to have taught you all these things because it's much more in the interest of wild-eyed technologists to sell you a GPS, but a few intrepid explorers, like Magellan (no relation to the GPS maker), Columbus (passing relation to the City of) and Lewis and Clark managed to get around without GPS units.

 

Given that people need to do a little more thinking anyway, I am unabashedly amazed by the number of GPS units sold with 4.5" screens that also do tricks like play MP3's.

 

All of which gets me back to where I was when I started explaining this this phenomena: Feeling more lost than ever.

 

Bad Kitty

Tuna for the cat?  Bad idea...

"Hey George – after reading Thursday's column, wanted to pass this info along to you:

“An occasional tuna treat for your cat is generally harmless. However, if a large part of the cat's diet consists of tuna--or if the cat is fed tuna exclusively--some problems are likely to arise.

Tuna does not contain significant amounts of vitamin E, for example, so too much of the fish can lead to vitamin E deficiency, resulting in yellow fat disease, or steatitis. Symptoms include loss of appetite, fever and hypersensitivity to touch, due to inflammation and necrosis of fat under the skin. Felines who are fed too much tuna can develop other nutrient deficiencies, too, because most de-boned fish are lacking in calcium, sodium, iron, copper and several other vitamins.

Mercury, frequently present in tuna, also presents a potential danger. "At low levels, this may not be a concern," explains Bough, "but if tuna is fed nearly exclusively, it could pose significant problems."

Another reader pointed out that because mice eat vegetables, a mouse is really a balanced diet for a cat. Dozens of emails about this.  Pusscilla and Zeus have been assigned the duty of pawing through them all.

 

How Many Calibers, II

My notion that three ammo sizes would be sufficient for most folks drew a lengthy reply from a fellow farmer/rancher with 60-acres up north of us, but the pertinent part is this:

"Now I’m going to preface this by stating I have 10 years USMC experience. So I might be a little bias. But….

The AK’s and the SKS’s, which I also have, 4 AK’s and two SKS’s, are good out to about 150 to 200 yards with a competent marksman. The 12 gauge is a must, mine is a magazine fed auto-loader, but my wife is the one that uses the 9mm and I have a preference for the .45’s. When out and about, depending on what I am doing at the time, I usually have the .45 Para hanging on my hip, whereas if I’m on the tractor I use a shoulder harness with the .45 Glock. Too many times while gathering low growing crop like squash and cucumbers, I have discovered a snake or two getting out of the sun, and needed something handy to send the little critter to the great beyond. A couple of time while cutting hay, looking up and seeing a coyote, or wolf watching me from a small distance away, a quick couple of rounds flying in its general direction kind of discourages him/her from hanging around. One of the oddest was when the wife was trimming the hedges around our driveway she reached in to remove the clippings she just made and discovered a snake intertwined within the bush. Since she used to be a LEO, her training and reaction times are pretty good and after a couple of rounds with the 9mil dispatched another slimy disgusting critter to the great beyond.

What my main point is though, that when hunting for deer or such, which this will be my first year ever of doing so, most of the shots will require a shot of about 300 yards, give or take a few yards. The AK’s and the SKS’s even with a good scope will be stretched to their limit. Now I have the AK’s in both the 7.62x39 (hers), and 7.62x51 (mine), (the 7.62x51 is the .308 equivalent). But for what I will use this winter will be a .30-06. These rifles have a good flat trajectory and range, with good ammo, of accurate shots out to 500 yards with a good scope and a little practice. Now I do not recommend going out a spending $1000 dollars on this type of rifle. I have a WWII Mouser 98 chambered in .30-06 with a medium quality scope that I picked up for less than $300 dollars. After going through about 100 rounds to get to a comfortable feel for the rifle, and a tube of Ben-Gay for the shoulder afterwards, I have now the confidence to drop my first Bambi this season. Will field dress, then take her over to Detroit to the processing plant there and have a standard processing package done. This will stock my freezers with Venison, Pig, Cow, and Duck. And should completely take care of all meat needs for a minimum of two years.

Now all this is just to pass on that maybe one more firearm would be applicable for your needs. Actually two, a good .22lr/mag loaded with snake shot to take care of those pesky chicken snakes which will eventually end up in your chicken house eating the eggs that we both prize so much. Shot one yesterday that measured over six feet long. This is the second of the season so far. Last year shot four. Plus two rattlers, one water moccasin, and one I’m not sure what one was, but it was a snake and that is all that mattered. Dead. The .22lr loaded with snake shot will get the snake in the laying box without leaving holes in it. The only other critter that I had to address in the coop was a rather large coon that managed to pry one of the boards loose and gain access to the coop. A nine mill will not stop a large coon at night when you’re in your pajamas and a little hyped up and trying to get a shot to a vital area. Where as, the .45 with snake shot will make it one shot, one kill. Yes you might have to patch a few small holes the size of bb’s, but that is a simple chore. With eggs at $1.75 a dozen, and chicken prices going up dramatically, constant vigilance on the coop is becoming a prime priority."

Good points, all.  So maybe a .22 and a .50 with a scope for occasions when 'reaching out and touching' might be a good idea.  Haven't been looking hard, but 9 MM snake shot would likely do more damage than 22 with snake shot.

Retirement Planning

Check out US News' "10 greenest places to retire."

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Send snip and save items to george@ure.net

 

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Around The Ranch: Playing on 20, II

Thursday afternoon with a few chores and consulting things 'caught up' I decided to pay around on the 20-meter ham band again.  Contacts included a fellow in central Cuba, a guy named Antonio in Somma, Italy (near Naples he informed me), and a guy near Phoenix.  All of which is not to remind you that there are ways to communicate globally without phone lines - as you already knew that. 

 

What's going on at the moment is I'm trying to figure out how to 'thin down the herd' of radio gear.  One piece of gear is my favorite for voice modes, the Icom 746 because it has decent DSP capabilities, while the digital modes seem most enjoyable on the Icom 735.  The Icom 718 goes in the truck one of these days when I get to it, but that leaves about half a dozen other more or less complete ham stations (mostly classic tube types) as excess.

 

The tube-type gear has been fun just to brush up on trouble-shooting and alignment.  But EMP considerations aside (which make one good all-round tube type transceiver desirable), the question comes down to sorting out which ones to sell off and which ones to keep.

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It's not unlike the problem of a car collector.  Once you have a basic cheap to operate car for getting back and forth to the office, or to run to the store in, which of the collectable cars would you keep?  Sure, you could drive an exotic car to the store for a gallon of milk or loaf of bread, but the whole experience could be tainted by worrying that someone should open a car door into it, or it would be eyed by some envious person with a criminal heart.

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I keep telling myself that one of the secrets to life is that you can have anything you want, but your can't have everything.

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A rational decision would be to thin the herd down to only two solid-state HF radios and one 5-band tube type radio.  Any extra money ought to go into a solar power set-up which would be a multiple use investment.

 

Ultimately, I expect this will turn into a 'spin the bottle' kind of decision.  Do I like the early Drake twins?  Oh yeah.  But, if you look around the net you can find pictures of another 'keeper' pair, the Hallicrafters SX-101 Mark III, and the companion transmitter, the HT-32.

 

Each of these pieces of equipment has a certain attribute that makes it great, but then there were things about an old Buick Dynaglide that would make it hard to part with, too.  Or an old Springfield or Enfield rifle.  Hard to beat an AK-47, an Icom-746, or a Toyota Corolla with a stick, for getting the basic job done under a wide variety of conditions.

 

If you have ever come up with a strategy to thin down a car collection, gun collection, radio collection, or a what have you collection, please send it along.   There are a zillion different strategies, by weight, availability of parts, investment/collector value, and all the rest, but it's one of those rare decisions that doesn't have a 'snap' answer, at least not yet anyway...

 

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Thursday May 1, 2008