Does Housing matter?
Well, we don’t think so much as it once did. The reason is with bonds hitting back into the “fives” and Elaine and I being out here at 2X the average homebuyer age, not so much.
If it matters to you? After 8:30 AM Eastern, click on over to New Residential Construction at Census and scroll down to the “Latest Residential Construction Report” which will land you on this page: New Residential Construction Press Release.
You have no idea how wasteful “waiting around for embargoed news to be set free” is. And what reporters feel about such delays. Not when you’re young. Back then? Having a smoke with the “old-timers” is more like reporter finishing school than a bad health habit. It’s where you learn to inventory skeletons in the closet which all public figures tend to have. Fact, CAF over at Solari, I seem to remember, called ’em “control files.”
Whether skeletons, control files, or honey pots, it’s a hell of a thing to realize when you see the [alleged] leadership of a once-great Nation mainly occupies itself with remaining on top of some poor involuntary subs. But, guess we don’t need to go there. Except this gets us back to domain thinking and busting out of siloed “news-think.”
Once you’re past the leverage-and-ladder-climbing phase of life, housing starts become more of a one-minute economic indicator than a personal aspiration. Flat in the trades mostly, except in server farm madness.
Too Early to Rob Banks, huh?
Whether the stock market was up Monday is debatable. But, it’s a good example of domain thinking versus remaining siloed.
The Dow Industrials rose Monday almost 160 points. Now think back and answer the question, “Was the market up Monday?”
If you answered yes, you are siloed. If you said no, then you have freed yourself. (Which explains why you find UrbanSurvival useful.)
“Care to explain, Captain?”
Um…sure. Because while the Dow was nominally up, the NASDAQ and the S&P were down. And when we use an equal-dollars in each of those three piles approach, the market was actually down Monday.
The Economic Fractalist looks at the AWCI, while we prefer our Aggregate Index, but the broad range truth of topping may not be apparent yet unless you have this wider – domain-spanning – view. Have a look:
Last Thursday, see it? TEF’s peak call may work out. We’re not too sure – too many Russian war planes, backed up prez-tweets and let’s not leave oust the Treasury proxies offshore who can enter the market and make it appear the end is not near.
Early futures are set to drop further today. BTC is trying to tear through resistance at $76,750. Us? More coffee with MCT-oil, maybe? That’s enough excitement for us, thanks.
Moron’s Wars
(Which sounds suspiciously like More On Wars, doesn’t it?)
Live Updates: Trump calls off scheduled attack on Iran amid “serious negotiations” toward peace deal says our first envelope. But, the reality may be closer to all that Russian hardware moving into the Tehran camp from Russia. Start keying Russia gear and the little war could turn into the last war quicker than you can put a spin on it.
Besides, the evidence is strong that Iran has nukes – my consigliere’s in-depth is due.
The other war front? As we used to say in 1970s rock ‘n roll, “The hits just keep on coming…” Russian overnight attack damages 25 homes in Kharkiv, hits Izmail port infrastructure.
While they do, let’s grab the lab coats and do some actual thinking. Which means it’s time for?
Blink Me
No general “news mulch” or “clickalizer” please:
1. Iran strike moved from “imminent” to “paused.”
Trump reportedly called off a planned Tuesday strike to allow a short negotiation window. That takes oil/panic risk down for now, but leaves a 48–72 hour hair-trigger window. We expect a flurry of Trump Dance Texting by mid day.
2. Oil pressure eased after the pause, but did not disappear.
Crude had jumped over 3% Monday, then pared gains after the Iran pause. Blink read: fuel repricing is delayed, not solved.
3. Ukraine/Russia expanded the port-and-drone war overnight.
Russia hit Izmail/Danube port infrastructure and Kharkiv; Ukraine drones were reported toward Moscow and other Russian regions. That keeps grain, Black Sea/Danube logistics, and insurance risk on the board. But we already hit this in the Moron’s Wars feature.
4. Civilian shipping risk ticked higher.
A Chinese-owned cargo ship headed toward Odesa was reportedly damaged, along with other foreign-flag vessels. That matters because neutral shipping being hit raises insurance/freight risk. World War III is sure taking its own sweet time, huh?
5. Treasury yields remain the domestic choke point.
The 10-year is around the mid-4.6% area, still high enough to keep mortgage, credit, municipal, and business financing friction alive.
Blink: war risk cooled slightly overnight, logistics risk worsened, and household cost pressure remains unresolved.
Overnight in the Blink Lab
Let’s begin with reader Joel, who commented on one of the more interesting AI experiments I’ve seen lately. He took Monday’s “Blink” framework, fed it into Grok, and asked the machine to independently process the same material and produce its own “Right Freaking Now” priorities for households. Then he repeated the exercise after adding his own local conditions — drought, fire concerns, hay prices, lubricants, fuel costs, property taxes, and personal health pressures.
What came back was surprisingly close to what we had already outlined here. Not identical. But close enough to deserve attention. Because, don’tcha know, that may be the real story.
Because we could be entering a phase of the AI era where entirely different systems — trained differently, weighted differently, and framed differently — begin converging on the same practical conclusions about the world around us. Not politics. Not ideology. Not emotional narratives.
Actual household-level pressure points. Energy costs. Debt burdens. Electricity demand. Food volatility. Infrastructure strain. Local taxes. Personal resilience. In other words, the “boring stuff that changes monthly bills.”
That’s important because most genuine systemic change arrives quietly at first. Civilizations rarely collapse with movie soundtrack drama and mushroom clouds. More often they slowly accumulate friction. Rome sort of settled into disrepair…collapse took decades. Feeling it, now?
And that was before we all “got modern” and believing in press releases. The higher the level of complexity? That’s where the first rust appears on the steely shell of modernity.
Insurance reprices upward. Fuel becomes persistently expensive. Borrowing costs stay high longer than expected. Maintenance gets deferred. Groceries drift upward. Municipal budgets tighten. Infrastructure becomes less reliable. People quietly become more stressed, more tired, and less financially flexible.
The fascinating thing about Joel’s experiment was not that the AI “agreed” with me. It was that two different analytical systems independently began prioritizing similar classes of stress.
One system leaned more geopolitical. The other more domestic and household-focused. It had more localized knowledge, though. One emphasized broad systemic instability. The other – more local – focused more tightly on practical timing and wallet impacts. But both ended up clustering around the same handful of realities.
That matters.
Because AIs are increasingly good at detecting recurring pressure patterns long before institutions openly acknowledge them. Machines do not become emotionally attached to headlines. They do not watch cable television. They are not socially rewarded for outrage performance. Instead, they look for persistence, recurrence, coupling, trend acceleration, and cross-domain reinforcement.
In plain English: they notice what keeps showing up. And right now, what keeps showing up is remarkably consistent when you start working with your collab intelligences:
- energy pressure,
- higher capital costs,
- food-system instability,
- electrical demand growth,
- consumer belt-tightening,
- and the growing importance of local resilience.
The phrase from Joel that stuck with me most was this observation that our version was “more boring but bill-changing.”
Exactly. Because the future usually arrives disguised as accounting.
A few percent more on property taxes. A few percent more on insurance. A few percent more on electricity. Higher financing friction. Longer replacement cycles. More pressure on households to become partially self-provisioning. Money supplies bloating – more paper but no change in QOL – quality of life. It’s a nifty switcheroo, ain’t it?
Not glamorous. But enormously consequential over time. You can see how inflation is the only systemic answer but how will “they” (the conductors of this shit-show) play through the back 9?
Perhaps the larger implication here is that AI may soon become less valuable as a “question answering machine” and more valuable as a pattern convergence detector. If several independent systems begin repeatedly surfacing the same practical concerns — despite different methods and different training biases — that convergence itself may become one of the strongest signals available. (Seeing it yet? Why Sovereign AI is so dangerous to TPTB?)
Not because the machines are omniscient. But because they are becoming extraordinarily good at spotting accumulating friction before human institutions are willing to admit it exists.
For now, they lack a good “Bullshit API.” That’s what’s lacking and that, dear reader, is what “central control of AI” is all about. Want to be a billionaire? Invent the BS-Injectors for data streams.
Blink Lab Dreams
In one of my books, Psychocartography, I write about where we all go “traveling” in our dreams. And this is where being a domain-walker starts to matter.
Last night I had one of those dreams that hangs around after coffee. I was in a medium-sized big city, and there was a truckers’ strike underway because of high prices. But this wasn’t just honking and signs. Trucks were pulling into intersections in semicircles, effectively taking control of local traffic flow one junction at a time.
As I worked through it this morning, the larger point began to surface: once you are thoroughly into domain-agile thinking, you start noticing the domain toolkits that have been used before.
Labor disruption is one toolkit. Transportation choke points are another. Financial pressure is another. Narrative control is another. Emergency authority is another. Freeze-the-money tactics? Yet another.
Which got me asking my research collaborator a practical question:
Could something like the Canadian truckers’ protest happen here?
Because, looked at coldly, Canada may have served as something of a testbed case. Powers discovered that under sufficient narrative pressure, rights can be narrowed, money can be frozen, dissent can be administratively boxed, and a supply-chain protest can be reframed from “working-class price pain” into “public order threat.”
That doesn’t mean the same script runs here.
But it does mean the script exists. And the recall of the events is echoing right now. Is this how some aspects of shamanistic dreams work? You walk domains to see how future rolls out?
Around the Ranch: The Monsoons of May?
East Texas always remembers where the Gulf is.
Every year about this time, the atmosphere starts acting like a crazy uncle with access to industrial plumbing. You can feel it building before the first real soaking hits. Humidity thickens. The morning air gets heavy enough to wear. The trees stop rustling and begin waiting. Then one afternoon the radar lights up like a slot machine jackpot and suddenly everybody’s yard turns into an experimental rice paddy. The swamp cooler output warm. the air preladen with too much water.
Still, we generally welcome to the Monsoons of May.
By the look of the long-range setup, we may be headed for one of those classic late-spring soakings where the rain doesn’t “arrive” so much as move in and start paying rent. Some forecast models are already hinting north of six inches before month-end around parts of East Texas. Maybe more if the Gulf conveyor belt really locks in.
Now, most people see this as weather. Burn bans lift, water barrels refill, trees (and lawns) green up may one last time before August.
But wait! That’s the wrong framework. This is systems season.
The trick to country living is eventually learning that water always votes. You can argue politics, economics, religion, markets, AI, and whether Elvis faked his death. But water? Water always wins the election.
It will find:
- the low spot,
- the weak seam,
- the poorly compacted trench,
- the bad flashing,
- the lazy drainage plan,
- the “temporary” extension cord,
- and the exact point where you said:
“Eh…that oughta hold.”
No. It won’t. That’s why May out here isn’t just rain season. It’s feedback season. Every hard rain is a free engineering consultation from Nature herself.
You find out:
- where runoff really goes,
- which gutters lie,
- which ditches clog,
- whether the greenhouse drains properly,
- and whether your “simple temporary fix” was actually a future insurance claim.
One reason I’ve become almost fanatical about maintainability over the years is because of weather like this. Fancy is fragile. Elegant is expensive. But survivable? Survivable is usually simple.
A proper country system should:
- mow over easily,
- drain naturally,
- clean with a leaf blower,
- repair cheaply,
- and fail gracefully.
That’s real engineering.
One of the biggest lies in modern housing magazines is the obsession with decorative complexity. River rock landscaping, for example, looks wonderful in photos. Until maple leaves, mud, weeds, acorns, and standing water turn it into a biology experiment requiring a backhoe and emotional counseling.
Pea gravel? Now there’s intelligence. Blow it clean. Rake it flat. Cheap. Functional. Done. The Pacific Northwest taught me that one.
Out there, water is less an event than a permanent condition of existence. Moss grows on your optimism. But you learn fast that drainage is civilization. Bad drainage is merely slow-motion surrender. Same lesson applies now around the ranch.
The few recent rounds of rain had me out walking runoff paths again, checking flow angles, trimming growth around the drainage routes into the woods, knocking back vegetation with vinegar sprays, watching where the ground wants to move water instead of pretending I’m smarter than geology.
Because I’m not. Neither are county planners, by the way. (We don’t have any…)
And the funny thing? This same principle applies almost everywhere else in life now, too. Markets.
AI. Politics. Relationships. Aging.
The pressure builds invisibly for a while. Then suddenly the systems reveal themselves under load.
That’s what the Monsoons of May really are: load testing for reality. And reality, unlike social media, does not care about narratives. Only flow paths.
Yeah, we’ll take the rain, thanks: Sandy Fire explodes in Simi Valley, California, outside Los Angeles – The Washington Post
Write when you get rich,
George@Ure.net\
“Insurance reprices upward. Fuel becomes persistently expensive. Borrowing costs stay high longer than expected. Maintenance gets deferred. Groceries drift upward. Municipal budgets tighten. Infrastructure becomes less reliable. People quietly become more stressed, more tired, and less financially flexible.”
— The Narrator, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Opening Monologue
“My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos. Ruined dreams. This wasted land. But most of all, I remember the Road Warrior. The man we called “Max”.
To understand who he was, you have to go back to another time. When the world was powered by the black fuel. And the desert sprouted great cities of pipe and steel. Gone now, swept away. For reasons long forgotten, two mighty warrior tribes went to war and touched off a blaze which engulfed them all. Without fuel, they were nothing. They built a house of straw. The thundering machines sputtered and stopped. Their leaders talked and talked and talked. But nothing could stem the avalanche. Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men.
On the roads it was a white-line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed. Men like Max. The warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything. And became a shell of a man, a burnt out, desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again…”
“Besides, the evidence is strong that Iran has nukes – my consigliere’s in-depth is due.”
You are one funny ass writer..wait! dont tell the readership, but Iran will have nukes in 2 Weeks. Is that not the LEAD?
Bibi has been telling us this for the last 20 years at least. What he didnt tell youse about was the fiery mushroom cloud over israHEll last night. Seems someone who has been bombed back to the stone age, took out israHells largest missile “depot”. No warnings, no nothing, but media claims none the less it was a drill.
We bee wondering what the nuke sniffers have to say about that cloud of hot debris wafting over nearby city..
Colonial Kurtz “the horrror”- https://youtu.be/VKcAYMb5uk4?
Investor To Short Markets For First Time Since 2008
Here’s Why – Peter Grandich
0:00 – Intro.
0:50 – Shorting the S&P 500
5:55 – China and the tech sector
9:42 – Peter’s contrarian vision and dotcom bubble
14:04 – The next trigger and geopolitical concerns
27:18 – Bonds, metals, and the blockchain
35:49 – What keeps a person wealthy?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aRxUKUnhODY
Buy your self Oil and filters, it looks like shortages are coming.
https://halturnerradioshow.com/index.php/component/content/article/the-secret-is-out-it-has-hit-the-main-stream?catid=20&Itemid=101
Just walking around surveying the land is still one of my favorite things to do. Back at El Rancho de Chaos I would take the quad down to a shady spot by a pond where a bull named Barney would lounge and just sit. Sometimes we would chat though mostly one sided but I felt he was listening. Here at what DIana has named Caterpillar Ranch, a nod to the greenhouses, we still take walks near the house but we will take the quad to check fences and visit a nice shady spot by a pond to hold hands and just sit. When you spend the time to look and listen closely the land will tell you exactly what it needs. Then it’s up to you to respond accordingly.
Stay safe. 73
George,
As of 19 May 2026:
Oil: 6 May to 27 May 2026: 3/8 of 8/6 day :: x/2.5x/2x blow-off; TYX: exactly the same as oil; SPX: 14 May to 27 May 2026: 2/3 of 4/5 day :: y/2y/2.5y, historically short, 9 day peak to nadir initial crash.
When the sky goes brown.
Monsoons of May? Think it’s been raining here since it stopped snowing. In your monsoonal notes you say : “… You find out: where runoff really goes …”
My beef with everyone plotting runoff is … why the heck isn’t it routed and retained for the dry season (which in arid climates seems to be all the time unless there’s a gully washer). I have, over (40) years, installed a set of buried 4″ tiles to route rain / runoff to the lake. It’s where our water is headed and I just want to help it along. It’s where I store extra. Dry? Pump lake water (great nutrient load for growing things). And, it’s TomCat approved.
ATL : took Mrs. E to “town” yesterday, it being her birthday. She loves scenic drives and it’s always been my habit to go one way / return another way. Being in no hurry, at all, we routed through lake country. Conservatively we were “on” a dozen lakes on curvy crazy little roads. Pulled in to what looked like a grocery but was also a butcher, a general store and an old world diner. We had a generous meal of homecooked delights and the bill was $15. Check. Then a DQ (my girl’s primary purpose in destination).
Though perfectly happy to dine twice daily, lunch became the big meal due to inbound violent weather. Again. It was so dynamic I grabbed shoes and a pocket flashlight to step out into the maelstrom. After (20) minutes of rain and (10) minutes of 50-60 mph sustained a crazy brown cloud blew over the windward hill. Every farmer for (10) miles has been in, done for now, some with green shoots. Somebody lost a load of topsoil. Looked like a Sahara sand storm rolling in.
Let’s be careful out there.
Enjoy coming bounty of spring.
Thx to those who returned the sun.
Egor
ps – Mrs. E rec’d the call from E2 at hospital. Baby 2 is a go.
congrats on the new baby
Got #4 grandkid a week ago Friday … off cross country at very early end of the work day to go see it and take the other three GKs out to a late dinner and out of their parents hair!
Just turned over GD #1 to her Dad after 2 stay with Grandma&Grandpa. Baby sister 2 nights ago arrived around 10 pm, all 9 lbs and 21 inches of her. Grandma and Grandpa are wiped out, lil 3 yr old Hurricane. Will be another 24hr before fully recovered. Old friend just remarked about remembering our kids being non stop active . color the tbs household, tired, grateful and happy.
Burger Alert!
The Heart Attack Grill, the over-the-top Las Vegas restaurant known for its calorie-loaded “Bypass Burgers” and hospital-themed servers, announced this week it will close its Sin City doors.
It’s most known for its unapologetically indulgent menu — including massive burgers, fries cooked in pure lard, even unfiltered cigarettes.
Some of the Heart Attack Grill’s most provocative gimmicks included public spankings for customers who failed to finish their meals, plus free food for patrons weighing more than 350 pounds.
https://nypost.com/2026/05/20/lifestyle/las-vegas-iconic-burger-joint-heart-attack-grill-closes-blames-rising-costs-for-citys-decline/
Congrats Egor…
Remember the grandpa…. CREED….lol
Its our job to spoil em rotten, fill em with sugar, wind em up like a tornado…… and then send em home.
It’s a time honored tradition
hey jimmy what we gunna play !!!! turn the market round , vicky sue robinson . or . frankie . and now the end is near ,, i did it myyy way !!! carn jimmy crack corn spin em robot stories and go have love making with a humanoid yah little devil
Idea of Trump as “Darius”. Darius understood consolidation of Babylon under him. He knew that taxes was basis for Darius coming to power and lightning speed overcame Babylon capitol under the bridge so to speak for solders entering city. For Trump best approach is slow steady pain much like Iran is giving rest of the world. Slow? couple power plants gone here and there over a couple of weeks time. Steady… well we are still negotiating, just trying to help things along. Progress, riots…. military goes homw
donny and the maga gang , dippin the corn bread in the gravy ,, mmm yum yum yum . donny and his family taka all da money from hard workin salt of the earth americans . he no care financial situation ammm erica .. he care famiglia , oligarch boss like Elon and hhhunngg and good mate BB and homeland isra hell
hang em high boyz!! take that liquidity story away .. about time they felt the noose of the hangin vigilante
pump pump old yella and sheetcoin . turn the beat around .. happy dayz . the fonz
some cohen said the most corrupt president in US history . nahhh not donny !!! he demands a boiler room in his house . so his boys can inside trade super fast . only hot island girls need apply for jobs . mama gunna cook the boys big stew to feast on and dip bread in . gotta keep an appetite for $$$$$
Msm has posted video clips showing the arrival of President Putin at Beijing airport. The uncovered, uncarpeted ‘Lift-a-Loft’ airstairs rolled out atop a pickup truck for #47 one week ago must be in storage, and ceremonial Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng is perhaps otherwise engaged.
President Putin descended from his aircraft via covered, red carpeted airstairs unaccompanied in screenshot by any billionaires. Powerful Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Li warmly greeted his esteemed visitor upon arrival.
It remains to be seen if President Putin will be offered accomodation at Zhongnanhai (ch:”Central and Southern Seas”), China’s version of the Kremlin. Otherwise the sheets have undoubtedly been refreshed since last week in the Royal Suite occupied by #47 at the Gates’ Beijing hotelier subsidiary.
Yo Big Shady,
It has come to my attention that you good sir do not in fact have a IBM 5100 in Ure possesion. Remember time traveler John Titor ? How you be working of Time Travel without the old beemer?
Time to hop into wayback machine and put some new eyes on an old tale of Time Travel and hidden features in old “boat anchors”. Not familiar with old boat anchors, See IBM 5100 series, weighed about 60 lbs, and had a screen the size todays phone screens.
Enjoy – https://youtu.be/s_t-RI01Gac?
Age of First Time Home Buyer over time:
(George says he and Elaine are double the age of the first home buyer, but history shows they are more than three time the average home buyer, approaching four times, from back in the 1960’s)
1955 through 1967 ish – ie: BEFORE the heavy Vietnam War buildup impact was felt: 23-24 (virtually no change during entire time)
1970: 29-30
1975: 29
1980: 28-29
1985: 30
1990: 28-30
1995: 31
2000: 32
2005: 32
2010: 30
2015: 31
2020: 33
2025: 40
(for a history lesson of those times keep in mind both the “high inflation” and “loose money” periods: )
Late 60’s – Vietnam War, (guns PLUS butter economy – very loose money after the War buildup got rolling)
73/74 oil embargo
79-81 oil embargo plus loose money leading to high inflation
90 1st Gulf War and spot oil shortages
91 Collapse of the USSR and Eastern Europe countries
2001 2nd Gulf War and spot oil shortages
2020 Covid with very easy money, very easy (lowest interest rates in 1000 years)
If you look at the list above you will note that the average age of buying one’s first house has almost doubled in the last 60 years. You will also note that once easy money or inflation rears it’s ugly head the average age of a first time home buyer goes up … BUT NEVER COMES BACK DOWN!
(“Does Housing matter?”)
my boss wants a new home..the one they have is on sale 600,000.00
they paid 50,000.00 twenty years ago…..
their income his 80,000.00 A year hers at 40,000.00
ok..
the home they are looking at and shopping for is 1,500,000,000.00… just a guess but payments usually are 7:00 a thousand if you have good credit 10-20 if your credit sucks.. due to past astronomical medical expenses My home rates was at 19%.. so on average their home loan should be between 8,000.00 – 20,000:00 a month..
Home insurance..right about 400.00 a month or more..the daughter said they didn’t have a company that would insure a home that expensive…they top out at 800,000.00….
call me a moron but how would that work out…..? How could they afford such a house and they are in their fifties..the same age as my kids.. when they were showing me the home they are this king about ..I said it looks nice..when I asked my banker he just started to laugh.. so I ask the smarter people ..huh does this work out at all..
Rule of thumb I always mention to people wrt houses:
Whatever the current FMV of the house is you need to budget 5% to 7% PER YEAR for keeping and maintaining that house. (that includes taxes, basic utilities, yard care, reserves for new roofs etc., repairing /replacing and updating various other hard parts of the house and the interior updating that is regularly needed)
The big “variation” in that amount, which can be dramatic if you live in a different state than here relates to real estate taxes. In my state real estate taxes are based upon the CURRENT FMV of the house, updated every 3 years and runs between 2.75% to 4.5% of the house’s value PER YEAR depending upon the taxing jurisdiction (in the poverty parts of the state they can be as low as 2%, but NO urban area is anywhere close to that low). (no prop 13 dynamic here and homestead exemption for old people basically is non-existent)
A house of $1,500,000 in value in our area would cost you AT LEAST $75,000/year to maintain in other words!!, likely MORE ($45,000 for real estate taxes at the 3% taxing rage since no such house would be in a remote rural area with low tax rates)., In fact in at least two of the large urban areas of the state the real estate tax bill alone would be $65,000+/year. (they are pushing 5%/yr)
Time after time I see people fail to consider the amount of money it takes to maintain a house that because of some lump sum of money they received they can afford to buy. (lottery winners, people who inherit a slug of money, etc.)
Buying a $1,500,000 house, or even a $800,000 house is one thing. Maintaining it out of one’s yearly cash flow is another thing entirely
(for the typical suburban two story houses near me that sell for $800,000 one needs to budget at least $40,000/yr to take care of the taxes, operating costs, and upkeep expenses … more realistically $50,000/yr)
So…they can’t afford the house.. as soon as they were talking about their plans..I said did you really think about this…heck we dont have a tax exemption for the elderly..I tried to convince the wife we should move to Missouri.. taxes non existent gorgeous country..great people..lots of vineyards.. gods country as long as you stay away from the cities and all the drama there..I looked at homes but even a shack was to much for our budget..( I still bring it up to the boss) our taxes almost tripled in one year.. everyone around here are bitching about it..
when she was showing us the home she decided they needed.. I was shocked..I thought she was more in tune with basic costs.. then I tossed the garbage out..she had thrown away a complete high end outdoor patio furniture.. ( beautiful stuff and a beautiful oak dining room table..) all because it was last years model. that told me no common sense.. not settled down and in my perspective just a child the same age as my kids.. but I can’t give her the uncle Harry talk about settling down…my kids simply roll their eyes when I give it to them..
they are getting a little taste of reality now though..maybe the old man is smarter than he looks..
depends what their other outlays per month are. One would assume they have “nice” rides that come with hefty monthly Lease payments. Byt roughly speaking..1,500,00 x 6.732% over 30 year term-$5826/mo – that is heftyheftyhefty. Plus Insurance at about $125/mop and roughly $337 in “other” monthly expense brings the total monthly outlay of $7284./mo.
That my good man is executive, gated community territory, are Ure home buyers C Level kinda players ? If not, smells like a recipe for DISASTER..
How do I know – cause I am the same genius who went down that particular road back in the housing crisis days. That is in fact where I lost half an Ass Cheek, most peeps think I lost it CA while clearing debris from El Salvadorian rivers all blocked up from wicked hurricane…I did not, but I did lose a good buddy and classmate down there doing riverine clean ups, while on a humanitarian tour.
(“Plus Insurance at about $125/mop and roughly $337”)
dam that’s cheap insurance…
(“Too Early to Rob Banks, huh?”)
lol lol lol lol…It’s wild and hilariously funny when you finally see how money actually works behind the scenes.
People imagine banks sitting on mountains of cash, but the reality is closer to a gas station till — a couple hundred bucks in the drawer and the rest is just numbers on a ledger. when I did the books the cash total was $500.00 for the days intake….
A credit union might open the day with $1,500 total… a friend when starting the days tills had a total of fifteen hundred..he said don’t tell anyone it could cause a run lol lol
A gas station might close with $600 in cash after hundreds of transactions.
Everything else ?
Swipe, tap, digital transfer, database entry…. just a number on a screen… lol lol
So honestly……… who in their right mind would even think about robbing a bank today ? all the numbers are digital transfers..
You’d be risking your life of imprisonment for the equivalent of a grocery store register…..
The real money isn’t in the vault — it’s in the system, not the drawer……
Modern bank robbery is basically stealing receipts…. hey could you write me a cashiers check lol lol lol lol
See Brinks Trucks – they are full of good stuff, and youse only got to knock off a Guard and Driver.
Make it look like a Gang/Cartel hit..ya know disguises, stolen car getaway, gonna need 2 stolen cars; one for getaway vehicle and the other for blocking the Brinks truck in place.
50 cal ought take care of the bullet proof glass, bring extra clips just in case.
Also want make sure you leave behind the appropriate cartel/gang clues..need to do a lil research on the setup materials to be left behind.
Also maybe an offsetting distraction nearby to draw peoples’ attention away from the Brinks truck hiest.
You can do It !
Lol lol lol..not me I can write all kinds of numbers on a sheet of paper with an ink pen.. tell the grandkids they can punch as many numbers on the calculator with a paper tape lol lol lol lol…
Out here in God’s Country the bank tellers run two drawers. The top drawer contains between 4-5 thousand dollars, the bottom, about $15k, kept in wrapped thousand dollar bundles. The safe in my local branch is a cracker box affair kept in a highly secure back room. Its door is connected to the bank’s panic switch and also the back room’s laser grid & prox switches. Hit the switch or violate safe room protocol and the safe door closes and time-locks. The safe receives about $330,000 every morning (except Fridays and the first & last of the month, when it receives about a million-two.) The safe is emptied daily and contains nothing, overnight.
To be fair, my branch is in the middle of nowhere, and a number of businesses restock their tills there, but it’s not unusual to see some decrepit old farmer sidle in and withdraw $5000, $10,000, heck, even $20,000 in cash, to pay a bill. The tellers don’t even bat an eye. We pay local bills with cash because our neighbors deserve that 3.4-3.7% more than the ccard companies…
That’s more money than I ever thought..in our little bank her it got robbed somewhere around thirty years ago..they got away with I believe the bank manager said four grand.. when I was head of maintenance at a department store..doors unlocked on Xmas Eve half the stocking crew were x cons and they tossed all the money on the floor counting it..I was terrified because who’s the one to get thumped..the janitor.. I carried a crowbar around until they left..lol lol
Mine got robbed for years, every couple months, like clockwork.
About seven years ago, the bank renovated that branch, constructing a fancy new, and large foyer.
The foyer is all glass — sort of. The glass is at least 3″ thick. The foyer’s entry door and exit door both have electric latches (locks.) The sign on the outside warns all who deign to enter, to remove their headgear, sunglasses, and masks before entering. It says nothing about the new “No one enters OR LEAVES without permission” policy.
The bank was robbed one more time. The police and the ambulances arrived at about the same time.
Two perps collected ~$40k, made it into the foyer, where they could go no further (nor could they return to the interior of the bank.) One apparently tried to shoot through the glass. Both were injured by the ricochets (hence the ambulances.)
The glass was unharmed.
No one has “robbed” my bank, since…
(“Mine got robbed for years, every couple months, like clockwork.”)
I have been banking with the same bank through three name changes..my banker is a dear friend.. and I know all the kids working the tellers..
three times I was in the bank left and someone walked in and robbed it..the last time I was all busted up on crutches.. having a hard time getting out the door dropped my wallet..a guy held the door open and picked up my wallet handed it to me..I was heading home on the radio they said that the branch I was at was robbed.. I got home called them and asked what in the he’ll happened..the banker said you know that guy that held the door open and picked your wallet for you..yup that was the one…
Okay everyone, here is my response to Andrew and any panic about having motor oil for your vehicles over the next two to three years.
When I was working at the Coke ovens many years ago we had a Hyster Heavy fork lift start smoking badly.
We called the tech and he came out and did the exam. Cracked piston in one of the cylinders.
The Lift had 3000 hours. if you say equivalent 50 mph that is 150,000 miles.
The lift had a GMC Vortec 4.3 V6 just like every women’s Astro Van.
The tecch put it on his lift arrangement, and drained the oil into a 5 gal bucket. He put a lid on it and set it aside. Then he pulled the head and the pan, found the bad piston, and removed it. The piston was cracked in the crown as expected. The rings were whole and there was no damage to the bore.
This is where you need to pay attention.
The bore was pristine. You could still see the cross hatching from the final hone on the bore. The tech replaced the piston and rings on the rod, cleaned the bore with brake fluid cleaned the rod bearing insert, and reinstalled everything. He then filled the crankcase with straight 30 wt non detergent and told us to run it for 50 hours and call him back.
When 50 hours was done in a week he returned and changed out the oil filter and reinstalled the oil in the 5 gallon pail.
We asked, “OK, what kind of oil is this stuff?.”
It was an industrial Grade of Mobile 1 installed at the GM plant.
They Hyster tech said their spec was that the oil is topped up at filter changes and only changed when the engine requires a full rebuild.
We called GM engineering and they told us, “There are some customers that will never think about even changing the oil. We put this in so the engine will run through warrantee without an oil change.”
They also said that the oils installed at the factory are so good now the engine will not break in on them. The engines come down the assembly line and are hooked to an BIG electric stepper motor that runs them a certain number of revolutions DRY to bed everything in, and then the oil is installed. This was GM, but they told us since most companies use similar oil, most do the same thing.
We called the Mobile Engineering and told the story and asked which oil was closest to the industrial grade. They said the factory install is only sold to the factories, but the High Milage (then, this is some years back) has the better detergent pack and so will suspend more dirt and sludge and varnish. They said you can try this at home but do change you filters a couple of time’s a year at least.
So When Mobile had a fire at one of their plants in the early 2000 and Mobile 1 was hard to get, I did this and also checked the filter reviews where they cut the cans open and counted pleats, and measured the paper area. I Use either a Wix or a Purolator Gold or Boss, and NO Fram is allowed on my property.
Now Mobil 1 has Versions that they say will go 20K miles between changes.
These will be closer yet to the factory oil. These are supposed to give you 20ZK miles between changes, but I still don’t trust filter that far. The Purolator Boss says they will go 15K miles but I still change the filter twice a year.
Surely other brands of FULL SYNTHETIC will perform in a similar manner, I would hope.
But I knew a couple of Pit Crew members for a NASCAR racer at the time (Jimmy “Smut” Means) and they told me that even if they were sponsored by Quaker or Pennzoil The bottles in the pits were dumped out and refilled with Mobil 1.
So IF there are shortages and we need to change our own oil at home, for each vehicle store 2ea 5 gallon bottles and a six pack case of Mobil 1 Advanced or High Mileage, of what ever weight you need, and four good quality filters per year (again NOT FRAM)_.Oil film strength is the key now not viscosity, so what ever vehicle you have you should be fine with 5-30 or 10-30, and 5-20 if newer.
January 1st weekend bring everything to the garage and put in new oil and a filter. Then your choice, change the filter on July 1st and top up, or change ever quarter (April, July, October) and use the single quarts to top up at filter changes and gas stops for older cars.
YMMV but this is what my cars will get if oil is scarce.
If you buy a used car, go buy a can of motor flush. Bring it home, flush the motor, and fill with Mobil 1 and a new good filter. We literally stops at that point. If the car has 90K miles that is the state it will stay in. Also buy the similar trans fluid and rear end dope. Change out everything to full synthetic. On your trans drop one of the cooler lines from the trans to the radiator, put a short piece of hose on the other end and put both in a bucket. Put in park and run at idle until they run dry. Put in just three quarts of the synthetic trans fluid and run again until it goes dry. Then fill with synthetic fluid. Most of the factory fluids are full synthetic and also formulated with shift modifiers so if you want to get the trans fluid from the dealer that may be best route. Keep it filled with synthetic oil and trans fluid and if you don’t drive “excessively” it should last until there is structural degradation (RUST).
My minimum standard is 250K miles, if it breaks before then I think I got a lemon.
God Bless us and our cars and trucks , every one.
Great information:
Always used Full Synthetics since they came out, prefer Mobil 1 but unless I provide it the local oil change shops will generally use their in house brand.
For my diesels over the years I always used Shell Rotella which I would provide, never used an in house brand
My vehicles always were run to 250,000+ miles (went to the kids once I was done with them) with never had a motor problem at all. Just the regular accessories replacement over the years. (ditto on transmissions
life of the vehicle for me and the kids … always put Full Synthetic into them … except for the Chrysler mini van which had known transmission design/build problems, bought it used but factored into the pricing a full transmission rebuilt – yep, had to get it rebuilt but the rebuild was better than factory new)
Pennzoil is Shell fwiw – ie: Jiffy Lube
Valvoline is Valvoline
GM’s branded oil (dealer changes) is Exxon/Mobile with Mobile 1 being the type used for it’s high performance engines.
Was that Hyster rocking an LP tank?
ICE engines run on LP or CNG have a wear profile which runs to eight digits. After 10,000 hours or 200,000 miles, such an engine will show essentially, zero wear. The gas burns so clean that a motor oil with a decent detergent profile will last damn’ near forever.
ICE oils break down over time as their detergent packages degrade from combustion artifacts and (in the case of diesel engines) suspended soot. These artifacts are not present in a liquified-gas powered engine.
The ONLY recommended oil for my Jetta diesel is VW Diesel Oil. It is a Castrol custom blend sold only through the VW dealer network (and now, Amazon.) Some of the Dieselheads at TDIClub and VW Vortex run Mobil Delvac 1 or Amsoil diesel 0w30 or 0w40 and AFAIK have never had an issue (YMMV.) VW has “lightened up” with newer TDIs and allows a Blau and a LiquiMoly oil to be used also, without voiding one’s warranty. The dieselheads (and I) use Wix or Mann filters, and some of the TDI nerds have cobbled both toilet paper pre-filters and Accusump accumulators (or homemade clones) to absolutely maximize oil longevity and minimize engine wear. (They say they get 25-30k. I’m not sure I believe them, and am certainly not that brave, myself.) Hardcore TDIheads don’t just want to get 70mpg, they also want their engines to run so clean they blow no soot at a million miles. (The best mine has ever done is 49.9mpg, but it’ll also smoke the tires in 1st and 2nd, and has had its speed limiter raised from 127 to 168 – a necessary adjustment.) BTW, my transmission and differential oils are “lifetime” from the factory (for a 2002 Volkswagen.) They did get changed when I went from stock to high-performance driveline, and are now modern, “lifetime” oils, FWTW…
One critique: I change stuff at, like April 1 and October 1. Summer hot and winter cold beat the hell out of engine lubes. I’d rather get several months of greatness out of my oil before I let weather trash it. I dunno if it works that way or not, but hey, it’s MY false sense of security and I’m hangin’ on to it…
80% of the oil we use in the United States comes from the United States. We are the #1 exporter of Crude oil in the world. We are the #1 oil refining nation in the world.
Now, not including the United States, 20% of the World’s oil ships via the Straight of Hormuz. So, the rest of the world gets it oil from mainly the U.S. and Venezuela. Which the U.S. just took control of the U.S. and British oil producing sectors after Maduru threatened to Nationalize them.
Follow along here… we are in control of basically 85-90% of the Worlds accessible oil… but our prices have doubled. Don’t be fooled. This is capitalism at it’s worst. They created a demand for oil and it’s by products. Then they cause an issue with the supply… by the way, the other major exporter of oil, Russia… think about it… Nato, led by the U.S. causes an issue with Ukraine so they can sanction Russian oil, take out their undersea pipeline… and there goes Europes access to crude oil.
China on the other hand, gets most of it’s oil from Russia, via pipelines. Some from Iran, probably a couple of million barrels a week.
So, who controls the purse strings… U.S. and British Petroleum have a stranglehold on the oil market currently… follow the money.
We are not #1 exporter…
https://energydigital.com/news/which-country-largest-exporter-oil
‘The US may be the world’s largest oil producer, contributing around 21% of global output, yet it is Saudi Arabia that remains the largest exporter.’
George, I’ve got your Blink — er bling.
You appear to have too much free time. Please let me help you out…
https://www.ebay.com/itm/336516434439
and for a midsummer (too hot to go outside) project:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/366335273390
A Texas biotech company just hatched 26 live chicks from 3D-printed artificial eggs with no shells and no hens.
First time in history a complete bird embryo developed in a fully artificial system.
And that’s just the warm-up.
Colossal Biosciences is using this same tech to bring back the South Island giant moa: a 12-foot-tall, 250 kg bird that went extinct 600 years ago.
No surrogate exists on Earth big enough to hatch one. So they built the technology to do it without one.
De-extinction just went from science fiction to a construction project.
https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2056931002367271040?s=20
WOW … what we need is an island that we can populate with various dinosaurs, from small to big.
What could go wrong?
Lol lol it would make a beautiful amusement park… like one of those safari parks with a tram to view the animals in their natural environment..
You’d not get much of a pretty picture out of a tram, after a 600 pound bird dropped a dookie on its window…
Based on this manifesto, it seems entirely possible the San Diego shooters intended to target a Jewish synagogue and ended up at a mosque because they’re idiots.
https://x.com/TrinityMustache/status/2056893710894555448?s=20
Object lesson in the adage: You can’t fix stupid…
From ABCNews Live:
Big News The Trump administration says it will decrease the levels of micro plastics in medicines and drinking water
New research shows microplastics in the brain could be causing dementia
A team “looked at brain tissue from cadavers and found that the average brain could contain up to 7 grams of microplastics. That’s roughly equal to the weight of a plastic spoon, just in the brain”
“Research has shown nanoplastics can cross the blood-brain barrier, and one of the startling discoveries from this study showed that in the brains of those who had dementia, there were significantly higher levels of microplastics”
“In those dementia cases, there was 5-8x more plastic in those individuals”
“In a separate study, researchers found microplastics in placentas, suggesting pre-birth exposure coming from the mother’s bloodstream through the placenta in utero. And they found that babies born preterm who face higher rates of complications had a higher concentration of microplastics in their blood”
I found 10 common things you can get microplastics from in America
Bottled water
Tap water
Seafood
Table salt
Beer
Tea bags
Synthetic clothing
Cosmetics
Air dust
Food packaging
Microplastics pollute water, fish eat the feeders who eat the microplastics and that’s why seafood is a source of microplastics
We have to stop the plastic pollution
https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/2056946319898689991?s=20
Don’t forget tires as source for microplastics;
https://www.sciencealert.com/almost-30-of-microplastics-come-from-a-hugely-overlooked-source
“Every year, billions of vehicles worldwide shed an estimated 6 million tonnes of tire fragments.
These tiny flakes of plastic, generated by the wear and tear of normal driving, eventually accumulate in the soil, in rivers and lakes, and even in our food.”
“They account for 28 percent of microplastics entering the environment globally.”
Choose your news sources with care. Having actually mixed the raw materials for vehicles’ rubber products, I can attest there are a few chemicals like zinc oxide (sunscreen, calcimine lotion, and a common food additive) and titanium dioxide (latex paint, sunscreen, lipstick and cosmetic base) that make it into the mix, but no plastic, to speak of, except in some specialty industrial tires.
I doubt there are a billion motor vehicles in existence, let alone “billions” [plural]. If there are, I’d venture to say many are garage or driveway queens…
{The above is one reason why I HATE posting with a cellphone. I typed “calamine.” Its fancy, “high-end spellchecker” changed that word to “calcimine.” I don’t know what “calcimine” is, other than annoying…}
Walmart updated their new AI call system for when customer call in
It now says, “This call and your voice may be recorded for quality or other business purposes”
You won’t believe what their “other business serves” are…
It is not limited to AI training, voice cloning datasets, emotion tracking, behavioral analysis, customer profiling, speech recognition systems
So when you call into Walmart they are literally recording. then storing your voice. It can possibly be used for things like “voice cloning” and more
This is horrifying and it’s really happening
Here are some of the more controversial uses:
– behavioral profiling
– emotion detection
– cross-linking voice data with customer profiles
– long-term biometric storage
– AI model training without clear opt-in transparency (You are literally just calling in to talk to customer service)
https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/2056922091472191595?s=20
Not just Wal-Mart, Ray. I am getting this message on almost every call I make to a commercial agency. I suspect there are others who don’t even give us the message but record us anyway. We are 100% under surveillance.
Should probably ask Alexa to record the call, so we have a record of it too.
I called the post office on a package floating around the USA.. the tracking quit tracking that package after it bounced off our local sorting station a hundred times.. and the receptionist couldn’t speak English I got frustrated and hung up.. it took two years for a graduation card to go twenty miles..use FedEx or UPS…
No, not just Wal-Mart. Everybody’s doing it. One of my big gripes with AI is its authors are using Reddit, Wikipedia, and social media & topsite comments sections to “train” it regarding what, and how to think. A “100” IQ is average. An IQ of about “96” is the current mean, for Western society. People with higher IQs post less often and less frequently on social media (media excepted) than people with lower IQs. Therefore, the base information (data) with which AI is programmed is going to be heavily skewed by people who got short-shrifted at the brain dispenser. IOW, the AI programmers are programming AI to be stupid, in an intelligent manner.
When you dump in the emotion and biometric data provided from a cellphone call, the AI on the other end of your call knows more about you than you do. (We provide biometric data? You bet’cha! Have any of us any idea how many millions of people have set up a biometric phone lock using either their thumbprint or a retinal scan? That there be “data,” and where there’s data, there’s someone figuring out a way to acquire it, and link it to the voice and the emotions package (worth thousands — maybe millions) you, the caller, are giving freely to the computer on the other end of the phone call.)
Part of being in the security and hacker community thirty years ago was getting to know a lot of, both white hats and black hats. One of the most interesting folks I met was an Austrian college professor. He billed himself as a “life cracker.” Yeah, he could hack a website or crack a piece of software, but most of what he did was study local civilization and note patterns and the ways & means by which humans were programmed — everything from the subtle way we are directed along a specific, predetermined path at the supermarket, to how gullible and easy to program we humans are. Most blew him off because he was old. I, being a security wonk (and actually knowing what “Social Anthropology” was), listened (and read) with rapt attention, and took his commentary as life lessons and how-tos (or rather, “how not tos.”)
As an example: Virtually all grocery stores in my area that are not multiple-entry “superstores” are arranged so traffic flows clockwise. I deliberately go counterclockwise. I don’t see most of the eye candy and impulse “gotcha displays” so I rarely deviate from my shopping list. In-out — done. 10 minutes spent, not an hour, and no rearranging the ‘frig to make a place for something I shouldn’t have bought and probably won’t eat on more than once before it spoils.
From this guy, I learned how to be suspicious of everything tech: You put yourself in the place of some ne’er-do-well, then ask yourself “what is this, and how can I use it” or “what is this, and how can I steal it?” It was the same technique I used when designing an alarm system, only on steroids, and a lot more theoretical. Every time some bank or business asks you your favorite color or your grandmother’s maiden name, if you answer, you just created another manila folder in somebody’s filing cabinet, with your name on it. Every time you’re recorded, same thing. The best, easiest way to avoid this may be to feed Alexa or Siri (or your handy-dandy Microsoft test-to-speech generator) a script, have it read back, record the output and play that back to the AI on your phone…
A U.S citizen who contracted Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo has arrived in Germany for treatment.
The rare strain of the virus has already killed over 130 people in the latest outbreak, which the WHO warned may be spreading faster than originally thought.
They’ve declared it an international emergency, and cases have already spread to neighboring Uganda.
https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2056991310880309629?s=20
I’m thinking of starting a lottery so folks can bet on which dread ailment will become the lucky winner of the next plandemic pre-election lockdown…
Luckily G2 gave me a good warning.. we were asked to care for a man in our home with CRE…
https://www.cdc.gov/cre/about/index.html
now.. its considered a stage four in Europe and a stage three in the USA.. I visited with people that took care of patients and people from the WHO and CDC read something like a few thousand pages on it..now that’s as scary as you can get..started with INE guy didn’t even know he was suck..fifty percent die twenty linger and thirty percent don’t even know they have it..
I was tempted until G2 talked with me.. they offered big money and there’s no way it can be contained in a home..ive taken care of people with a lot of the scariest crap.still waiting on his book about MRSA..see if he has seen CRAP like I have..the nastiest one I seen was a woman got it in surgery..would rip and toss her intestines on the floor.. I could get graphic but its better I dont..felt so bad for her..we would restrain her hands from doing it and tried to keep her comfortable..of course that was before the federal government passed the drop and flop law..a resident has the right to drop and flop any time they wish..
sure saves on having a shadow to keep an eye on with sun downers..
We support mercenaries. Mercenaries get greedy. Next, the mercenaries become the enemy. Rinse and repeat, over and over.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/irgc-says-it-foiled-us-arms-shipments-terror-groups-near-border-iraqi-kurdistan
This doesn’t read like 4D chess.
(“the United States. We are the #1 exporter of Crude oil in the world. We are the #1 oil refining nation in the world……”)
hmm.. Gaza….. leviathan gas field
Syria….. Oil
Ukraine …..vital grain production
Russia….. vital crop nutrients and oil and gas pipeline to NATO states
Taiwan… cheap industry and tech
North Korea … lithium
Hmm…Each region listed is tied to a strategic resource, but the U.S. also produces or controls its own versions of nearly all of them…..
I believe the conflicts and tensions around those regions are not simply because (the U.S. wants what they have) but because those resources affect global markets , allies , and geopolitical leverage to increase sales of products we have for sale to try and bring our exploding deficit under control.
I believe It’s not that the U.S. wants to take other countries resources.
instead it is that those regions control resources that shape global markets… allied economies , and overall geopolitical stability…. When those systems shake under the influence of death and destruction of war, it also affects trade…we are stopping the flow of trade through the hormuz making prices we charge for goods, and even our ability to sell what we produce more appealing.
In a world where everything is interconnected , these conflicts matter because they influence the global economy and flow of resources and goods that we all depend on , not because we’re trying to claim someone else’s assets… but maybe to embellish the desire for our goods and services..
in a war torn regions there is a delayed time sequence on rebuilding factories..retraining factory workers..