Markets Peak… Food Next?

by

The longwave economics view brings many terrible thoughts to mind.  It’s like standing at the shoreline, sometimes, watching the tide come in.  Then realizing it’s a tsunami.

Amidst the odd machinations of the news lately, we are reminded of a huge story lurking behind the headlines.  Namely that America has some exceptional drought impacts evolving.

We can begin with the US Drought Monitor which shows the four-corners are of the Southwest in a terrible state:

We not-only have concerns about New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and Arizona, but with the left-hand side of Texas.  Down the Rio Grande Valley, water is very tight (again) and the dryness out east of Los Angeles – in the Imperial Valley – has shown persistent precipitation shortages, as well.

For now, it’s not a national crisis.

Few are likely to have noted the localized issues in the Dubuque, Iowa area where last week “Dubuque marinas, boaters left dry due to dramatic drop in Mississippi River.”

As we mentioned – far from a “national concern” except that at the UrbanSurvival level, we’re reminded by this very “in-your-face” set of data that most people have not planned their lives well, in terms of natural sustainability.

In other words, the notion that “I can just write a check for it…” doesn’t hold once the often-hailed notion of “Anti-Fragility” begins to show its soft under-belly.  (We’ll be focusing next week on Hyper-Fragility in next Wednesday’s Peoplenomics.com report for subscribers.  Which is $40-bucks a year, by the way, if you’re interested…)

Here on the “free side” of things, look for a report Sunday, if you have time in your schedule for some reading, visit here daily.  Sunday’s piece is about preparing for the “Bull Market’s End...”

Great Depressions are what happen when food supplies don’t keep up with demand in a recession.  While we’re not forecasting imminent demise, there articles like Axios’ “Climate change may boost pests, stress food supplies” that are worth reading.

While we’re highly skeptical of a lot of “climate hype” we’re still mindful that the Anasazi were forced out of the desert Southwest by exceptional long-term drought.  And who’s to say the same trends can be visiting again?

There are some things you can do to become more personally resilient.  Not the least of which is to get serious about gardening – which is moving up the list of items on the planning list around here.  I keep thinking about another trip down to Epcot because their hanging and sand-growing hydroponics are totally cool.

Toss in a couple of hundred gallons of water (per person) since a minimalist (*with body odor) can get by on less than 2-gallons a day…and even in the worst of droughts the occasional summer t-storm will come through and drop useful amounts of rain.

This week, for example, here at the ranch, we had a third-of-an-inch.  Not a lot – certainly not enough to keep a garden going with.  BUT, if you take a third of an inch of rain and we ever finish water-collection for our 3,220 square-feet of roof, that one-time event would have provided 139,104 cubic inches of water.

Since there are 231 cubic inches per gallon, that passing t-storm would have generated just over 600-gallons of water.  Gets me to thinking Caribbean-style cistern may be a long-term option.

Don’t mean to get off too much “into the weeds” – and George’s ragged thoughts” about planning.  Thing is, even  at age 70, I still plan on a couple of meals per day.  Even with a high well, a greenhouse, and catchment, we figure we could remain aloof from society if the crap ever hit the fan.

Could it?

Oh, sure!  A coordinated attack on SoCal water resources, for example.  And, if you want to worry about terrorism, we still wonder about the 2007 Barksdale nuclear incident and wonder if that was a “cover operation” to arm terrorists for later use when times get dicey-enough.  When might that be?

With the dollar having less than 4-cents of purchasing power (compared to 1913), with borders leaking, interest compounding, drought arriving, and politicians in  a daily pissing-contest, seems to us the smartest thing to do is to…

a) Focus on how to keep building our own, resilient and independent ways.

b) Stand aside and watch and learn from those who fail to read history and are therefore swept away when “normalcy bias” breaks down.

It has been said that another Great Depression “can’t happen.”  But, the data argues otherwise.

America’s future is always in doubt, absent the mindful work of Constitution following people who can look up from the tainted media and make their own lists of “difficult problems to be hedged.”

Which is why we mention the drought map first thing.  It’s just one of dozens of indicators…but a KEY ONE to watch.

Trump’s Bad Move

While we’re not fans of “automatic” pay hikes, it seems president Trump has forgotten how economics works.

The story is, of course, “Trump freezes federal worker pay, citing ‘serious economic conditions’.”

While it’s true that Federal workers shouldn’t lead wage increases, it’s also true that a more measured approach is justified on economic grounds.

You see, a cost of living adjustment is not a “wage increase.”

:Let’s put this is loaves of bread terms.  Because of the government’s addiction to watering down the money supply, any wage in 2019 that does not allow the purchase of the same number of loaves is a wage cut.

I think Trump’s got this one wrong.

I suggest he needs to go look at the increases in the H.6 Fed Money Money Supply Report and note that the GDP is going up, too.  If Federal workers can’t maintain purchasing power parity (year-on-year) then two things are sure to happen.

The first is?  The best people in government would have an incentive to leave.

The second?  Federal workers will “pull in their spending” a bit.  This will reduce tax receipts along with drying out some of the recently liquid elevating national mood.

Government (civil) service is supposed to act like a wind-up spring.  When times are good, we should be winding the spring.  When times are bad, federal and civil service spending being continued tends to moderate propagating  economic decline.

To me, it looks like politics, too.  Almost like Trump is looking ahead to 2020 and thinking “If we have a touch of slowdown in 2018-2020, any declines can be blamed on democrats getting back some seats in the House and Senate…”

We don’t think “playing politics” with anyone’s food should be on the table, yet to us, it appears it may be the case.

Of course, this may be part of messaging to the Deep State and, along with that, this may all feed in to how the president is messaging as the non-stop onslaught to impede his agenda continues.  His tweets about social media make the point.  But, if would be more clear to his base if he used hotter linguistics like DMR (digital mob rule)  and the Webolution.

On to Today’s Mess-Pot

The Reuters story Global shares extend falls on Trump trade threats gets us to wondering if the Top is in.  We sure have a hard time considering long-side bets (that the market will go higher) but there’s a case for a few hundred more points to the top of a trend channel in our Aggregate work.  More on this tomorrow for subscribers.

Meantime, Europe is rattling the trade cage again in “Juncker pledges to boost auto tariffs if Trump reneges on agreement.”

Social Collapse?  In Progress…

While the people of the (deluded) state of California like to believe they are a cut-above the rest of the country, we couldn’t help but notice how two men beast up a teenager on a train for playing his music, too-loudly.

Toss in the latest Sacramental symptom (“Will lame duck Jerry Brown commute sentences of every single death row inmate in one of his last acts as California governor?.”) and a strong case exists that normal stops at the Nevada and Arizona borders.  Jury’s out on Oregon.

For more, tune in to social media…and speaking of that, did you see where Fox writes “Hey, Google, Facebook, Twitter – Trump’s got a point. You need to do a better job of self-regulating?”

Let’s ALL Play “Taxi”

Oh, year:  Uber and Lyft are both eyeing IPO’s for next year.  “Lyft in talks to hire advisor for 2019 IPO: Bloomberg.”

The trick for both will be to exit while there’s still demand for ride sharing.

One of the more interesting economic indicators not reported is the supply and demand numbers for both outfits.

Seems to me if the economy is running into headwinds, there would be more people signing up to drive and fewer rides calling in.

Of course, it would be somewhat weather-driving, but jeez, wouldn’t that be a useful economic number?

There are a lot of these kind of data out there – just waiting for someone to figure out how to best monetize the data…

Ooops…time to wolf down some chow and move on to working on articles for the Holiday Weekend.

Drive safely and soberly…and drop–by every day this weekend.  Who knows – maybe we will have out virtual gold stars, or something silly like that…

“Moron the ‘morrow!” 

44 thoughts on “Markets Peak… Food Next?”

  1. A few years ago the data on federal, non-military compensation came out around the same time as the data for the rest of us. Basically, non-military federal workers get about twice the compensation of the rest of us. Apart from officers, soldiers and sailors are often on food stamps.

    We have created a federal Mandarin class, except most of them couldn’t hold a similar job in the free markets. They in turn have created a private commercial support class, which feeds on us and protects them.

    Then take the management class of the military and Mandarins. I know literally a bushel of retired AirForce, Navy, Army etc. field grade officer types who get huge extra compensation for their sleep apnea, sinus issues, and hypertension, supposedly caused by flying 30 years ago, or the pressures of commanding a headquarters squadron stateside, or commuting to the Pentagon, one supposes. Being 80 pounds overweight is not the cause, based on the logic of Mandarins who decide such things for Mandarins. And those almost fully “disabled” retirees also have extremely good jobs in the “private” sector, servicing public activities like health care for Mandarins, weapons development, etc., at salaries or commissions no free market could bear, often with jobs no free market company would even consider creating. Or perhaps they are triple dipping as senior management in the US government, with preferred hiring, getting a pension, getting disability and health care, getting extra pay for the cost of living where they are, and having a spouse with similar benefits. I know of several couples who take in $700k, using all the tricks in the Mandarin book., and only one of them has yet retired.

    If paying people to clog the arteries of commerce, with guaranteed raises, obscene benefits, insider “private sector” jobs, etc., producing overpriced and inefficient , counterproductive products and services, while those who actually foot the bill have no guarantees of even health care, much less pensions and cost of living increases, who must compete with third World laborers, and countries with no environmental, workplace safety etc. rules, and, hahaha, no job security, and who make half the money to boot, is a good, sustainable, just plan, I need a better explanation of how that can be. This obscene imbalance between those who milk the system at gunpoint and those who are forced to pay for it, is a major reason for the Trump revolution. It would have been somebody else if not Trump. And the revolution seems to have just begun. The system must reform or fail. Failure will be anything from ugly to apocalyptic.

    Huge

    • I have to agree. If we had a 50% cut in government employment, and a 50% cut in all remaining six figure salaries, we’d continue to perform all useful government functions – if efficiency was mandated.

      The leftovers would learn to work the way the rest of us do, or they’d find themselves hungry. We came from a nation of workers and we need to retain that ethic, along with that of self-reliance.

      There would be a sharp discontinuity, but people will adapt. The remaining employees would be made to realize that they are civil SERVANTS!

  2. I have a question. If the FED has 1+ trillion mortgage backed securities on it’s book. Now there has been a tremendous amount of foreclosures and refinanced mortgages in the last 10 years. How has that effected the value of those held by the FED? My step daughter and her husband lived in their house for over 5 years, while the bank was finding the paper work and filling for foreclosure. That was just one mortgage. Mortgage backed securities, as I understand , are millions of dollars of mortgages, sold in a lump sum bundle. How does the value of the security change and derivatives must be a whole other bigger problem.

  3. George, somewhere your calculations on the amount of water that could be captured from 3000+ sq.foot roof is way off. Here is the formula that I copied from this website.

    http://www.friendsoflittlehuntingcreek.org/description/roof.htm

    “How Much Rain Water Runs Off Your Roof?

    You may be as astonished as we were to learn how much water runs off a roof in a rain storm!

    Take a guess–what is the volume of water that runs off a 1,000 square foot roof during a 1″ rain storm?

    20 gallons? 50 gallons? 100 gallons? 1000 gallons?

    The answer is about 623 gallons.”

    George my wife and I have 2, 275 gallon “IBC tote” containers that catch all of the rain from a 1100 sq. ft. roof.
    We use the water for a medium size back yard pond and waterfall. An inch of rain fills both of the containers.
    We felt as if we had discovered a spring in our backyard once we got the system up and running. Our 1600 gal. pond has only needed metered city water a couple in times in the last 5 years.
    This is really one of the free resources out there. No wonder some cities have made it illegal.
    Thanks I truly enjoy your website.

    Garry

    • Let me walk you through it:
      3,220 SF of roof times 144 sq inches per foot – 463,689 inches if 1″ of rain.
      BUT, we only got 3-10ths…which gets us down to 139,104 cubic inches.
      Now divide this by 231 cubic inches per gallon and we get to 602.18
      HAD it been as full inch, I’d be out putting in a pool, lol

      • What is the pitch of the roof? A 3/12 pitch vs a 5/12 vs a 7/12 is going to allow for less water collection. Unless its raining sideways, which does happen:) Cheers!

    • I guess I never calculated how much rain came off of the roof.. I had one five hundred gallon potable water tank..the rain would come off to fill it then I had a pump system to pump and filter it to the garden.. it only took five minutes in a mist to fill that dumb tank.. I didn’t know what to do with the rest that came off.. I had to make an overflow for the heavy rains..

  4. Good analysis of a possible problem…but freezing the pay of those that don’t milk the system is not an answer. Maybe Trump should launch his own investigation into the type of double dipping you mention. Nobody gives me money for my sleep apnea…so if what you say is true, this needs to be stopped now.

    I would have much more respect for Trump if he would just stop speaking and acting in super broad generalities and dig deep and give us detailed solutions to issues like the one you just mentioned. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the brain capacity for that. There are similar scams going on with Medicare, SNAP, and other insurance fraud…If Trump can Stop that…then he is a hero.

    • Mark ,,Here is Why Trump is a real hero this is a long video it’ll take at least 15-20 minutes before it gets interesting but if you watch it to the end you’ll suddenly realize just how far the powers-that-be are trying to controll everyone even you Mark have been infected ,,,but what I will tell you ahead of time is that this is an immediate Danger and Trump has been notified and aware and is taking action before he took office, good luck mark
      https://youtu.be/3GV8Tt_anUQ

  5. One of the dumbest things that California has done, is to not take a page from the book of Israel regarding water and vegetable/food production.
    Israel is now a water exporter, even though it is in drought conditions through its ocean water to fresh conversion capacity, which produces cheap fresh water. 80% of the vegetables are produced in the Negev desert using drip tech and other modern and ancient techniques. The tools are there to prevent drought collapse, but they (and other coastal cities)seem to want to wait until it is to late to make use of it.

  6. “I suggest he needs to go look at the increases in the H.6 Fed Money Money Supply Report and note that the GDP is going up, too.”

    Well, George, you sure told him!! Ha, ha.

    My immediate thoughts. Surely you jest:

    1. No money left to fund these government crybabies — (mostly military, homeland security, BTW). All used up by the unfunded $2 trillion tax cuts for rich guys and the $12 billion for farmers’ welfare.

    2. As if Trump would spend even 3 minutes looking at H.6 fed money supply report. Ha. Or know what it was.

    3. BTW, juice the economy with $2 trillion of unfunded stimulus like that, and of course you’re gonna get inflation (and high interest rates). We’re just starting the rebound phase of some seriously bad policy. Best, Mike.

  7. Where does the rain, that fails to hit the US of A, precipitate, and any problem with rain dancing? ;)

  8. How many years are you going to wonder if the top is in?

    You’re against automatic pay increases for federal employees? lol. Obviously you’ve never seen the amount of “waste” that occurs with federal gov’t employees!!

  10. Food security is important to me. I grew up poor, eating oatmeal almost every day of my young life, and it made a mark.

    We just finished putting in 3 20’x4’x2′ garden beds, with a 16×24′ greenhouse on the way. We’ll plant radishes, carrots, lettuces, cabbage, kale, broccoli soon. The Long Gray starts soon, here at 48*North x 122*W.
    But for now, the grapes are ripening, the chestnut put off first fruits this year, the apples are ripe and juicy, and my freezer is filled with half a steer fed on the best grass around. I’m making 5 gallons of beef stock right now in fact. We usually have half a dozen turkeys, and a couple geese this time of year, but outbuilding construction trumped livestock this summer.
    Deer season starts in a month here, and this year the girls have their tags too. For elk this year, I’ve got an antlerless tag, so there’s a practically guaranteed 300 lbs of elk cow coming. Gonna have to plug in the back up freezer, or fire up the pressure canner.

    Here’s a tip; if you live in an area with lots of farmers, backyard chickens, hobby laying flocks etc., you may be able to cheaply acquire young roosters. Called cockerels, young roosters are culled from laying flocks about as early as they begin crowing. I take them home and fatten ’em up a bit, then whack, stack, and can them. Can you say you’ve got a ‘case of canned cocks’ on your shelf? Then you may be a prepper!

    Sprouting seeds and lacto-fermented cabbage, carrots & beets (think old fashioned vinegar-less dill pickles or sauerkraut)rounds out the food, and the fermenting hard cider preserves the apple harvest, provides a good buzz, and is the next step for homemade apple cider vinegar, which is its own pharmacopeia.

    Speaking of buzz, we always leave old bee hives out to house feral swarms. It works, and often provides a good source of honey. Bees have a hard time overwintering here because of wet conditions and dearth of nectar, but we endeavor to persevere. Mostly for the mead. Mead is amazing, and if you’re reading this and want to try fermenting honey into an amazing golden beverage, look up ‘Joe’s Ancient Orange’. 3 gallons of water, one gallon of honey, some oranges and spices, and some bread yeast, and you’ll be able to drink it in 90 days…if you do it this weekend, it’ll be ready for Christmas with the old folks.

    National politics is a distraction. Improve your soil, raise a couple hens, read a lot. Make your own cider. Volunteer to help old folks get groceries, and young folks to read. Be a good example to high school sports teams with nothing but positivity.

    “Begin the day with a friendly voice, a companion unobtrusive…”

    • I made a batch of cider with home juiced apples a couple years ago. The mass produced stuff at the grocery is bathwater next to good homemade cider. I wish I had space for a few apple trees here!

    • I’m right with you Sno….there wasn’t a silver spoon around here either.
      And I can tell you opportunities usually follow that silver spoon. Even in the grocery stores..kids from blue collar families get the labor intensive where kids from families with a country club membership get the management training positions or positions that are less labor intensive.
      Although…kids born with the silver spoon are the best tippers of anyone..because they don’t have to work for it..

      • Y’KNOW LOOHB,as my grandma would say, “our family is rich in love”, and that helped me stand a little taller. She also corrected my grammar constantly, and that plus being an avid reader helped me climb the social ladder. So, because I stood tall, shook firm, and spoke well, I was the one who got the responsible jobs, promotions, and better accounts, and ultimately “success”.
        George’s grammar school can’t be valued enough for the impact it can have.

  11. Not a single problem discussed in today’s columns or reader comments exists where I live.

    Let me offer two alternative choices.

    1) Expatriate to somewhere that has a sane national culture and economic climate
    2) Sit tight and wait until someone, government, gangs, big business, big pharma etc. figures out a way to separate you from the rest of your assets

    As you sit there fretting about your future, the rent from our $200k investment pays our expenses and we bank at least one of our social security checks each month. We eat out at least 7 times a week, have a weekly cleaning girl go over the property, and if there is a plumbing or electrical problem we pay somebody $20-30 bucks to come fix it.

    Our favorite restaurant recently raised the price of our favorite meal, real, not fast food, from $3 to $3.50. Damn that inflation.

    • New readers need to know that Bruce hangs out in the highlands of Ecuador where., according to legend, Butch and Sundance hung out for a while, too.

      • Myself, my dad, 3 uncles and several friends fought for our country. One uncle and several friends didn’t make it home. The rest of us are said to be a little screwed up one way or another.

        I’m not ready to give up on our country yet. I’ll stick around.

    • What one visitor said about Equador. “Through my experiences in Ecuador, I have learned about living in the moment, and enjoying life in a different way. People celebrate with their family, having barbecues at the river and birthday parties in the community center. Life is spontaneous, and to be enjoyed as you live it.”

      Life without an iPhone has it benefits. Good points expat.

      The problem with the USA is the belief that if we don’t dominate the world, chaos will break out. With such an outlook, there will never be peace. Also, we have too many Al Gore types. See above post.

    • God I wish I knew your plumber lol lol.. IF … You can get one it’s mileage and 200 minimum an hour. It took me two years to get one here..they only want big jobs. The same thing with odd jobs..I built our home..but my health conditions doesn’t allow me the ability any more..
      Luckily I was able to talk a young man into it as a career choice he’s backed out three months.. Emergencies he’s there right away..I have tried to get my grandkids to take up Plunbing then sell service contracts for ten bucks a month and with a thirty percent discount on future labor.. They’d be making a good half mill a year or more and not even get out of bed..
      I had a penny get stuck in the washer pump not even a year old .. The cost would be estimated 750.00 to get someone to fix it. It was cheaper to toss it out and buy a new washer..

  12. One of the greatest scams of the 21st century started with former vice president Al Gore, who influentially introduced the concept of “global warming” to the world. Now, the truth about Gore’s “global warming” scam is documented in a new book by Marc Morano, titled, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change.

    At the turn of the century, Al Gore’s assets totaled between $780,000 and $1.9 million. After years of scaring the public with “threat of global warming” and convincing legislators to invest taxpayer money into climate change initiatives, Gore’s wealth multiplied. By 2007, Gore’s net worth was “well in excess” of $100 million. Gore had successfully used a climate panic to sway the government to invest in the economic sectors he was poised and ready to profit from. Under the Obama administration, taxpayer money flooded Gore’s investments, with energy stimulus packages rewarding Gore’s tremendous hoodwink on the public.

    Al Gore is on the way to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire” & he wants more of your money. Why does Gore keep refusing to be interviewed by Glen Beck? Because his scam would be called out.

    MIT scientist Richard Lindzen called Gore out for wanting to become the first “carbon billionaire.” By 2008, Gore put $300 million into a campaign to promote climate fears while offering carbon reduction solutions that benefited the firms he was invested in. In fact, when the Obama Administration introduced a “renewable energy” solution for the economy, fourteen of the tech firms Gore was invested in had received and/or benefited from over $2.5 billion in loans, grants, and tax breaks. Indeed, Gore had become the first “carbon billionaire.”

    Gore, if elected President in 2000, would have been the only President worse than George W. Bush II.

    Al Gore is another reason why the concerned citizens of our country elected President Trump, who is doing an excellent job despite the constant false attacks trying to force him out of office. PT will not surrender & it looks like after the November elections, President Trump will mount his offensive with a fully stocked Republican Congress.

  13. I’ve always wondered about things like bird poop and other organic “impurities” in cisterns and how people dealt with it. Ran across this one good video about it here – “Rainwater Harvesting QA – Cost, is it Illegal, how I treat, etc.” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-e6oOyrQ04. It’s on my back burner for my fruit trees some time in the future.

    As far as the incident in San Francisco could it be life imitating art in a very lame way since the two attackers weren’t adept at the Vulcan Nerve Pinch? Remember, I think it was Star Treck II, where they went back in time to, of all places, surprise, surprise, San Francisco? The cities have always been pressure cookers and I’ll never understand how people flock to them. The more “civilized” we get the more we bottle up inside our monkey minds and, sooner or later, something pops. Civil discourse becomes as much an annoyance as that which originally annoyed you.

    You did catch me a bit off guard with the thought that government workers ought NOT loose their wage increase this next year. Economic slow down as a result? Talent loss? Perhaps – and in the back of my mind I think you may have said this to get a specific reaction, too. Not to worry. Reactions are what keep this website going and I’m all for it. My money, however, is on Trump will have too much push back on this and back off of it.

  14. The demand for oil globally is outpacing the supply which is currently pumping close to max. The U.S. economy which was previously running at a steady pace and making stable gains has been juiced to the point of overheating. The demand for oil will drive a new round of inflation. The dollar based oil trading and higher interest rates to fight inflation will maintain the strong dollar. Gold will continue to drop.

    In this new uncharted territory era, safe havens are a vestige of the past! george did mention weaponizing economics several days ago. lol

    I will make an analogy to the past, however; it is not an uncharted territory reference analogy. It does however draw an analogy between two separate but related and co-mingled pillars of world order, economics and military concerns. The German offensive during the battle of the bulge, failed and came to a grinding halt not because they lacked military might but because they ran out oil to push the forward. In this modern uncharted territory era an ecomonic juggernaut still needs oil to push growth forward.

    Growing too fast, too soon, can have a long term detrimental effect on an economy. Pouring an accelerant on an economy without a doubt will create an economic boom, however; maintaining that boom without further accelerants/resources becomes an issue. Its very possible this economic boom because of mismanagement will run out of gas. What will be our alternatives if this occurs?

    There are a litany of historic examples of “civilizations” reacting badly to such occurences.

  15. “Let’s put this is loaves of bread terms. Because of the government’s addiction to watering down the money supply, any wage in 2019 that does not allow the purchase of the same number of loaves is a wage cut.”

    whew.. this one is a tough one for me.. since I see both sides.. electricity went up four cents per work hour.. I picked up a loaf of bread.. ( I buy a few then freeze them) the price had gone up almost a dollar an a half since I bought last.. etc etc..
    freezing a wage for an hourly worker only reduces spending on necessary items one in three are on food stamps by what I think is design not necessity. someone gets a fifty million dollar bonus yet one third of the blue collar workers are on food stamps.. hmm do you see a trend there..
    some blame the people on social security.. ( excuse me.. I cannot even tell you how many times that I wished they would have let me put my social security donations into savings bonds.. I would be a multi millionaire with what I paid in during my life)
    Maybe if we Put the regulations back on necessity items that was deregulated years ago.. ( easy we use to have them on)
    I actually don’t think we can do anything about what is going to happen.. it is the domino drop.. we have been printing non stop for so long.. this is just drying up the water in noodle economics the noodle has to crumble and tear apart to be reset.. we all know what is coming..I can’t see any way for it not to happen.. so sit back enjoy the ride.. my hope is I am able to glean enough information to help survive through the future of money..

    • Trump is a “goose and gander guy” – can you see what woulod happen if he applied his stated logic to social security recipients? Just sayin…

      • The really scary part is… WE ALL KNOW IT WILL HAPPEN SOMETIME SOON.. REAL SOON … no matter what to get the country back on track..
        Millionaires reduced to beggers
        single mothers selling sex for a can of beans
        sickness and death because no one can afford medicines
        elderly gutter and dumpster diving for what they can get to survive..
        One look at the city of plenty (SF) is enough to show but just a glimpse of what is to come..
        I have visited with a lot of people that have survived catastrophic events in other countries.. the poverty of the depression here.. all have similar stories.. we had plenty one day the next.. one millionaire had more than enough money then the banks closed..and they had to pickup beer and pop bottles to sell to pay their bills and buy food.. sell their furnishings trade what they had..
        we see this trend now the bad thing is it is sporadic and everyone thinks it can’t happen to me.. I had the fortune of having to weather a few instances that only give me a glimpse of reality.. because of that I have a food stock even with that it isn’t forever you have to know how and practice producing..building and using what is on hand..
        Most of the kids today especially if they are in their forties and below have never had to deal with doing without.. making hard choices.. a sign is just the fact that one in five young college age girls make friends to get some minor assistance in books and tuition.. those are just the ones that are registered on sites.. not the real number the same goes with unemployment..I can’t even tell you how many elderly living solely on SS benefits that I have seen while working in the grocery lines buying cat food to eat.. it is a sad every day occurrence.
        because of my past life ordeals I go out of my way to help in ways that I can. my new friend was once upon a time a very influential man with a lot of pull destroyed by a SHTF scenario that he had no control over. One of my favorites was a man that lived in dumpsters till we were introduced to him.. the can man.. great guy smart kind and had wonderful life lessons all lost because of one thing… Unfortunately these things are coming for everyone except the one percent and those they control..

      • I knew a family member of a famous actor..nice guy talented and really took care of his family.. The family member would reflect on the depression and how the only answer was to go down to the honkey tonk do things while the kids shined their shoes, play the piano while the kids danced just so they could survive..heart wrenching to say the least.
        The vast majority of the population is what three paychecks away from being homeless.
        We read about the kids making a quarter million right out of college and being forced to live in cars under bridges etc. Using drugs to escape the image that is constantly thrust at them on their success..yet..there’s not one story about the man working at a burger shop or a waitress a store clerk..
        Now..think about it..if a kid out of college is living in a cardboard box a dump sells for two million that should be burned to the ground..what kind of living conditions does the janitor have..
        Now imagine those conditions flow across the continent in a few days time..the domino drops and starts the chain reaction thrusting everyone into hell.. what’s funny is it all could be avoided..instead of giving fifty million dollar bonuses passing those profits on to the workers as Christmas bonuses hiring local keeping industry here at home. Instead we went the opposite direction and one in three are dependent on federal assistance.

      • What I find odd.. Is how many times has a person heard..I don’t understand how someone as openly evil lik Adolph was able to do the atrocities.imprison
        the wealthy Jewish community with the blessings of the general population. .and we shouldn’t ever let it happen again.
        Look at Hussein openly a dog yet people were better off and there was more peace while he was in power.

  16. Your report today reminds me of a lecture I attended for a class on Scandinavian history, where the prof. discussed how many people living in Europe were enticed to move to ‘the old northwest’ where it was not unusual for the temperatures to hit 40 below zero in winter vs. where they had been living where the ocean was always close, moderating the cold. It must have been a hell of a shock that first winter!

    Likewise, extreme heat and drought – moving into that climate from more moderate areas would be an unpleasant surprise at least!

  17. I notice that the Senate and house members who get yearly cost of living raised was not mentioned in the wage freeze. Feed the lice while the body gets depleted. Yep we have the best government that money can buy.

  18. It’s like I always have said, if it hits the fan I will have a still up and running! Good thing to get some info on NOW! While it is not legal in most places without a license at this time it is not illegal to poses knowledge!
    Lets see how did they put that along time ago, mining the miners, farmers, hunters, people with food stores and on and on. It’s like you always say George, everything is a business model.

  19. Where is it written and by who that we are suppose to send close to a billion a year to the Palestanians. NM could of used that tax money if no one else in the US needed it. Looks like their wealthy cousins and neighbors could have chipped in out of chump change and helped them live well. Dont like him personally as a person but sure glad we got a businessman running things.

  21. Today I woke up late after all night lightning and thunder, with the rain probably continuing all day. Now I’ll have unwanted vegetation instead of a couple of thousand gallons of extra water because I’ve been too busy to set up a gutter and cistern system(yet). Yes, I have several hundred gallons in reserve, but having more water(contained) is never a bad deal. Today we can buy large poly containers for water that are food-safe and will hold hundreds of gallons for a price of around a dollar a gallon. There’s no good reason to have only one water source. Soda(or liquor) bottles are free and can be filled even by an apartment dweller. I run all my drinking and cooking water through a Berkey filter no matter what the source.

  22. Hi George & all–
    About 10 years ago, my wife and I went on a cruise that stopped at Antigua. There was a fascinating ground-level cistern on top of the bluff at Fort Shirley. About a 1-foot stone wall around the edges, and a very gently sloping V-shaped roof to it, led to the collection hole. Here’s a link:
    http://www.archaeologyantigua.org/index.php/shirley-s-heights
    Try to visit that one if you can for design ideas– Probably directly applicable to Texas

Comments are closed.