Ikigai Monday, Insincere Negotiations, and A Lab All-Niter

Out here – at the cheaply cobbled Earthship in the woods – there is a keen appreciation of ikigai on Monday mornings like this.  Not familiar?

“Ikigai is an Okinawan, and broadly Japanese, concept translating to “a reason for being” or “the reason you wake up in the morning”. It represents a personal purpose that brings joy, fulfillment, and meaning to life. Unlike Western definitions, it often emphasizes process, flow, and small daily pleasures over grand achievements, acting as a key factor in Okinawan longevity and mental well-being.”

Peoplenomics (Wednesday) will stitch all of this into whole cloth.  But for now it’s enough to remind that Elaine turns 83 this week, I will write shorter columns, but it won’t stop the research because the world won’t be around if a lot of us throw in the towel.  Humanity may not survive 50 years, warns Nobel laureate.

Hopefully, we’re not the only ones listening.

Insincere Talks

In a circuitous way, this leads to the big news story of the day.

Here’s where Monday gets interesting: Hormuz tensions escalate after Navy fires on Iran cargo ship in first blockade clash.

A short few hours earlier, the DC gush (Vance Heads to New Talks With Iran. At Stake: Peace and His Own Standing. – The New York Times) was all about J.D. Vance heading to Islamabad for another round of talks.  But now, we’re wondering, “What talks?” Iran pulls out of Islamabad peace talks after US seizes cargo ship.

Here’s how a goodly part of the world may be looking at the situation (and the U.S.) as a result: Iran says NO plan for US peace talks: Is Donald Trump LYING to the world?

While we really like some of the policies of the Developer in Chief, there are an increasing number of behavioral points that range from moderate concern all the way to scares the hell out of us.  And while this point from reader Stephen2 late Sunday hasn’t been widely picked up by echo chamber media, whenever a president starts talking about launch codes…well, let’s just say lying and torpedoing negotiations isn’t the way my generation was raised.  Outside New York, obviously.

Meanwhile, some of Trump’s “coloring outside the lines” has resulted in paybacks – literally: Trump Administration to Begin Refunding $166 Billion in Tariffs.

Despite all the happy-talk about economic progress, Making America Great Again, and so forth, our green eyeshades look at the national debt shows $38,985,997,093,766.37. Which means a rollover above $39 trillion is imminent.

And here, the bottom line isn’t that “prices are going up.”  Because the Truth of the matter is that the purchasing power of dollars is going down.

You couple the shift from once paying dividends to leaving shareholders to “find their own greater fools” to make money in markets and the whole “turd in the punch bowl” turns into a bet on when it will all sink.

Fed Ahead

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve meetings are next week, not this one. Officials are expected to hold the key interest rate steady at this meeting, maintaining the current range of 3.5% to 3.75%. Markets see virtually no chance of a rate change in April, with potential rate cuts likely delayed until later in the year. You can see how little range there is to the betting spread at the CME FedWatch tool here.

Market futures were down after the manic – possible blow-off high on Friday.  The crypto-crappers are overflowing with $75,000 talk.  They don’t mention, mostly, that their darlings are down 20-30 percent from all-time highs.

Thing most people forget is that there’s a flip side to income you can focus on if total gain is your objective.

For example, I’ve regaled you about all our investment and work on solar panels here at the homestead.  Yet now, we are into harvesting.  Our most recent power bills have been down more than 57 percent compared with a year ago. And on the consumption side, we went from 2,363 kilowatt hours down to 653 last month.

The point being the “bank paying interest” and trying to bet on “finding a greater fool” isn’t the only way to play life.

Though institutions aren’t keen on that “Build Your Own Earthship” kind of thinking.

Stu’s Blood “Sacrifice Day”

Nostradamus researcher G.A. Stewart is the first one I’m aware of who was talking about the April 19-20 period as a Satanic (or whatever) “blood sacrifice day” which is adjacent to Hitler’s birthday which falls today.

Like our work on the 130-136 day “murder cycle” there is ongoing – yet soft – hard to pin a cause on – data that it’s real.  Nominees this year include?  Louisiana gunman kills eight children in suspected domestic mass shooting.  And let’s not leave out Kyiv police shoot dead gunman who killed at least 5, took hostages.

Could it get worse?  Of course – we still have a whole day to get through.

Did Stiks Call a Quake?

In the same vein that Clif High once observed there seemed to be a data bulge in train derailments ahead of major earthquakes, we have our wondering sailor down in northern Oz filing reports about the “sun being in the wrong place” over the weekend.  That’s in his comment here.

When I first read that – about 2:30 AM – I tossed it off.  Observe bias, got the wrong poles, You know – the usual list of shit people get wrong.

But nope!  Here’s the story that made Stiks a certifiable genius: Strong earthquake hits off Japan’s coast, tsunami warning issued | CNN.

Just because the data doesn’t seem to make sense, never be too quick to toss out the observations as having meaning.  It sometimes will “be along shortly.”

Around the Ranch:  All-Niter in the Lab

Yes – that’s why ikigai and Elaine’s birthday are on my mind.  Woke up about 12:30 AM – brain on fire.  So, instead of going back to sleep, I picked up where I left off Sunday night.

See, I was out in the garden room (the lean-to greenhouse has been christened with a more civilized name by Elaine) working on pumping a specific waveform into my electroculture tomatoes experiment.

Yeah – this is a field that will probably be rolling out in near-future – the same way our red light therapy research was feeling back in 2016-2017 when we got off on a tangent with the same way of thinking back then.

So off to organize some 6,200 words of research notes into something useful.  I mean besides a greater appreciation of Okinawan wisdom.  Stirred and shaken, as turns out.

Write when you get rich,

George@Ure.net