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Multi-Quakes, Data Dense Thursday, Insurance Gardening

Four notable earthquakes rolled overnight. In descending order:

  • 7.5  28 km SE of Yumare, Venezuela
  • 7.2  23 km SE of Yumare, Venezuela
  • 6.9  30 km ENE of Kuji, Japan
  • 5.6  11 km N of Redwood Valley, CA

Venezuela is the serious human-disaster story. USGS put the pair at M7.2 followed less than a minute later by M7.5, roughly 100 miles west of Caracas, with early reports putting the toll at least 32 dead and 700 injured, collapsed buildings around Caracas and La Guaira, aftershocks continuing, and the initial tsunami concern canceled. Additional aftershocks are not just possible; they are the normal follow-on when the crust has just been rung this hard.

When we get quakes around the Earth’s midsection, I always get tingly. The reason is that when — not so much if — the Earth experiences another global crustal shift, it would not be unreasonable, in an Irwin Allen “master of disaster” plot line, for early stress releases to show up closer to the equator.

Now, self-check so I don’t spool up needlessly on too much coffee: the Venezuela mainshock was about 10°26? north latitude, roughly 1,160 km / 722 miles north of the equator. So we won’t scamper to an escape pod just yet. Oil depletion nearby may figure in. Seasonal loading may figure in. We did just pass maximum Earth-axis-tilt day, also known as the Solstice. And then there is the normal crustal stuff, which usually wins the Occam’s Razor contest.

Japan’s quake was large but, so far, cleaner: M6.9 off northern Honshu/Iwate, about 30 km ENE of Kuji, felt widely but without the Venezuela-style casualty profile. The “Mayan angle” is not there with this one. At about 40.3° north latitude, the epicenter was roughly 2,780 miles / 4,480 km north of the equator — not the equatorial trigger-zone my over-caffeinated disaster brain watches for.

California, though smaller, was attention-getting: M5.6 near Redwood Valley in Mendocino County, about 11 km north of town and shallow enough to be widely felt. There were reports of some structural damage and injuries, so it was not a nothing-burger. The eyebrow-raiser is latitude: Redwood Valley came in around 39.36° north, very close to the Japan quake’s latitude.

Well, except: using Japan at about 40.3° north and Redwood Valley at 39.36° north, the difference is only 0.94 degrees of latitude. At about 69 miles per degree, that puts the two quake epicenters only about 65 miles apart in north/south latitude — basically the same latitude band, despite being separated by the whole Pacific.

Over hash browns and bacon, this distills down to: Venezuela is the tragedy, Japan is the big-system stress test, and California is the usual NorCal reminder that the crust still has a twitchy trigger finger. And yes, it is OK to remain politely paranoid.

Next, before we head to the casino, a check of the…

News Compressor

Besides the quakes?  What changed overnight is the business decision environment shifted away from “Middle East energy shock” and toward “inflation/Fed/AI-risk repricing.” Oil eased as more Gulf and Hormuz traffic resumed, including Maersk vessels exiting the Gulf and Reuters reporting crude back near pre-Iran-war levels; that takes some gasoline-panic premium out of the system but does not normalize shipping, insurance, or stranded-cargo risk yet. Markets caught a big AI-chip bid after Micron and Qualcomm revived the “AI buildout still has legs” trade, while the PCE inflation release sitting on today’s tape keeps Fed-rate risk alive.

Now, one more stop before we go over to the casino and the dense data dump of the day.

Dialing Through the Noise Floor

Want me to bore you with my latest SIGINT toy? A Rycom 6040 frequency-selective voltmeter. This will eventually be used as a field-strength meter when I get on the “forgotten ham bands.”

Forgotten ham bands?  630 meters is the U.S. amateur band at 472–479 KHz, secondary-use, low-power, and wonderfully stubborn. Which explains the Rycom: to measure compliance with the FCC limit of 5 watts EIRP — 1 watt EIRP in parts of Alaska near Russia — with up to 500 watts PEP transmitter output, fixed-station operation only, and prior UTC/PLC notification required before you light it up.

In plain English: on 630 meters, 5 watts is the power your station could appear to radiate if the same field strength came from a perfect imaginary isotropic antenna radiating equally in all directions. Using EIRP — effective isotropic radiated power — keeps people like me from “going large” with monster antennas and pretending five watts is still five watts after the antenna system starts doing antenna-system things.

In practice, 630 is a weak-signal, big-antenna-compromise playground for those of us in super-nerd modes: WSPR, QRSS, CW, narrow digital modes, loading coils, ground systems, and all the dark arts of making a backyard antenna behave on a wavelength longer than most neighborhoods.  Wait!  Did I just get off track? So sorry… back into news-noise we jump:

Signal: Space weather is active enough for operational nuisance. Kp 5 and a large active region rotating into view are not catastrophe signals, but they matter for HF, satellites, GPS, and power-system monitoring. Confirmation rises if SWPC posts G2+ watches or repeated R/M-class flares. Confidence: 60.  Still, with four notable quakes over night, polite paranoi—oh, you know.

Signal: Gulf shipping is reopening unevenly. Oil price says “relief,” but shipping reports still say “controlled transits, stranded vessels, insurance, and remaining cargo.” Confirmation rises if inbound traffic, LNG movements, insurance rates, and container delivery backlogs normalize together. Confidence: 80.

Signal: Ebola response is becoming a funding and importation-risk story. WHO’s outbreak concern plus a U.S. supplemental request moves this from overseas health story to homeland-health-security watch. Confirmation rises if additional exported cases appear outside Africa or if health-worker attacks continue. Confidence: 75.

Signal: AI infrastructure is shifting from chips to utilities. OpenAI’s custom chip, Qualcomm’s data-center plan, and water/power pushback all point to the same bottleneck: compute is becoming a grid and water fight. Confirmation rises if local data-center moratoriums, ratepayer disputes, or utility interconnection delays accelerate. Confidence: 70.

Signal: El Niño food stress is not gone because inventories look OK. Reuters reports strong inventories may soften a shock, but weak monsoon risk in India and heat damage in Europe keep the food-price fuse alive. Confirmation rises if India restricts exports or Southeast Asia rice/palm oil yields deteriorate. Confidence: 65.  More in Around the Ranch in a sec, but let’s do the data dump first.

Data Dumpster Thursday!

Do I need to remind you that “investing” is not what paper is?  It’s gambling?  But then so is Bitcoin ($61,208 earlier and it might lead markets lower if we’re not careful in here…).

Durable Goods:

New orders for manufactured durable goods in May, down following two consecutive monthly increases, decreased $15.6 billion or 4.5 percent to $332.1 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This followed an 8.5 percent April increase. Excluding transportation, new orders increased 1.3 percent. Excluding defense, new orders decreased 4.6 percent.

GDP Lags Inflation now:

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 2.1 percent in the first quarter of 2026 (January, February, and March), according to the third estimate released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter of 2025, real GDP increased 0.5 percent. The contributors to the increase in real GDP in the first quarter were increases in investment, exports, government spending, and consumer spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

BEA Personal Income and Expense

Personal income increased $181.6 billion (0.7 percent at a monthly rate) in May, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Disposable personal income (DPI)—personal income less personal current taxes—increased $164.9 billion (0.7 percent), and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $156.1 billion (0.7 percent). Personal outlays—the sum of PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments—increased $159.9 billion in May. Personal saving was $704.2 billion in May, and the personal saving rate—personal saving as a percentage of DPI—was 3.0 percent.

BLS Weekly Unemployment Filings

NOAA (and others) Weekly Drought Monitor

In the latest read, we’re down to 45.9 percent ofx the country being in some state of drought.

And it’s not just hot and dry in (some of) the U.S. France records hottest day ever as Europe suffers brutal heat wave.  Out here in East Texas we are under half of last year and I can’t get up the nerve to dig any deeper into data.

Whew! Time for a coffee break. Make that an iced coffee!

Around the Ranch: Insurance Gardening

We are about to the end of Amazon Prime Days.  Ends on June 27, so only two more days to run.

IF – and we are not selling this as reasonable – IF you like eating here’s how I would stack up food resilience as a plan.

  1. Work on high protein storage foods.  We like Base Camp.
  2. Supplement with a couple of 20 pound sacks of good white rice.  Beans, soy sauce by the jug, and some salt which with potable water and solid multivitamins would keep you pumping air.
  3. Then I’d get some 5-liter size hydroponic units.  With these you can “hatch out” seedlings cheaper than you can buy them at the box stores.
  4. Next, I would get 16 of the five gallon DWC (deep water culture) hydroponics kits and get them into production (when the seedlings are ready).  Two of these, for example.
  5. Since buckets are for big plants, how about a 36 to 60 plant site kit for the greens? A small 36 plant site unit like this one runs about fifty bucks.
  6. Clay balls (for the big DWC buckets) are on sale. And don’t forget the hydroponic plant food (usually an A and B part), an outboard reservoir (black, to keep away algae blooms) for the greens unit which doesn’t come with one…and seeds. DON’T FORGET A TDS AND pH METER!

None of this is free, but here’s the thing: I always look at this kind of spending as a kind of insurance premium. Right now you can buy the insurance. At some yet to expose itself time ahead, we may not be able to.  Everyone makes choices. And it’s OK to be politely paranoi—oh, you know!

Write when you get rich,

George@Ure.net

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37 thoughts on “Multi-Quakes, Data Dense Thursday, Insurance Gardening”

Comments are reviewed by a human because the web is crawling with spammers. Submissions after 4 PM Central usually appear the following morning. After you click Post Comment, you’ll jump back to the top of this article, but your comment is queued up here. We’ve got a robust community and your participation is invited. Some commenters are brilliant. Read a few and judge for yourself. Imagine. You could be one.

  1. heads or tails ? red or black ? odds or evens ? this record breaking robot rigged big top !!! roll up roll up everyones a winner

    • Yo Shelia Downunder,

      Think maybe Ure Socceroos will show up today for their match against Paragays..um whoops thats the tRumpstein team, my bad. I meant the Paraguay team, not the pairs of gays at White House & Pentagon.

      In meantime – Im a Buyer, does the Aussie black Sheep have any to Sell and or Short ? Catching falling knifes is one of my favorite games of skill. Due all the scars and crap all over my hands, obviously dont have much skill in the Art, but Im constantly pushing to improve. So wit that mind – starting to nibble on BTC ETF (s).

      * Lettuce keep in mind the age old TRUTH – No Pains, No Gains.

      Im bringing the PAIN, so I can reap the GAINS..onwards and upwards.

      Yo Lennster – can you say “Walk This Way” ? Bet you can if you try real HARD like – https://youtu.be/If9qQ4XgabY?

      • if it aint the reverse guru !!! now im writing down everything you like and will act accordingly !!! be real real real real careful the next 3 days in yankee doodle dandy . is your neck length any longer ? voice going quacky ? i backed england to win soccer thing 9/1 . will watch final if they make it . thats how interested i am

      • re: “No Surprize”
        feat: Aerosmith

        Silver and Gold? Apparently “Walk This Way” went 2x Platinum in the USA.

        A page dated August 5, 2021 on Aerosmith’s website outlines how the band played a first time at Max’s Kansas City in New York City 49 years to the day prior. Clive was there to sign them up, and the band hit the big time.

  2. Hey G-Man,

    Take a look at the last nice sized Philippine quake . Now get ye over to the Antipodal Earthquake site wheres youse plug in the nearest town location data from the PI, to antipode calculator..Ure result should be within a 100 miles or so of Venezuela quakes.

    Urth – whole shebangabang is vibrating and frequed, hope the Flying Hawaiian is prepped and ready – just dont know where he is gonna go when the volcano blows..

    its bird, its a plane, holyshit is that Hank? Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude..

  3. “Earthquakes”

    A distraction by Trump to protect the Epstein Alliance Pedophile ring?

    OR….

    Trump getting close to busting the Epstein Alliance Pedophile ring so they threw the switch?

    Disclosure Day nears?

    You decide.

    • You thinking Venezuela was “scalared” ?

      That area on the margins, crossover, where magic tends to occur..

      A Raytheon Beam “weapon” with such capabilities is said to be installed and working in Antartica..whistle blower interview +source

  4. “Do I need to remind you that “investing” is not what paper is? It’s gambling? But then so is Bitcoin ($61,208 earlier and it might lead markets lower if we’re not careful in here…).”

    What about gold and silver?

    Dec. 30, 2025

    Silver prices – trying to turn back up this morning – are interesting, but what’s more revealing is how the conversation around silver is now being carried. Over the past few months, YouTube has filled with highly consistent, high-frequency commentary that looks less like independent analysis and more like industrial output. One channel in particular — “Jon AG” — stands out not for its claims, but for its uniformity.

    Same shirt. Same lighting. Same framing. Same cadence. Multiple uploads per day with no variation. That doesn’t prove fraud, but it does rule out spontaneity. This is not a trader thinking out loud. It’s a scripted delivery system — almost certainly AI-assisted — pushing a narrow narrative with machine discipline. And that matters, because markets don’t move on truth; they move on attention.

    The harder question isn’t whether the content is “fake.”

    https://urbansurvival.com/silver-book-talking-what-to-buy-in-26-testing-gluten-free-housing-follows/

    • John Asian Guy (John AG) is definitely AI, and probably a free model that everyone seems to be using for not only silver, but tool use, tax info, and many other variations of content. I’m convinced that he has a scrap of truth and a lot of agenda wherever he appears. I don’t trust those who use him for anything.

    • (“What about Gold and Silver”)

      Seriously What about gold and silver?
      All through history they’ve only ever been symbols — markers of social class because they were rare, shiny, and hard to get. The conquistadors thought gold was life itself while the Aztec seen it as decoration. Others worship diamonds, or designer clothes, or the numbers on a bank ledger. But none of those things have any real value beyond the meaning people project onto them….
      The real treasures are the seeds you plant in others — kindness, compassion, dignity, presence, and the courage to care. Those grow long after you’re gone..
      of course its only my opinion..

  5. We went from “Unseasonable Dry” to “Moderate Drought” in one week. Our Esteemed Governor.., you know, that guy appointed by God to oversee all of mankind.., yeah – that guy.., has declared a State of Emergency due to the drought conditions – now he gets to regulate our water also. He is so damn cool. You should have seen his ‘all-knowing’., ‘all wise’ smug-ass expression has he made the apocalyptic declaration.
    Realistically., politics aside., the local Forest Service has placed the entire county under ‘fire watch’. Smart move.., puts all the regional assets on alert and ready to roll.
    Guess it’s time to recheck my pump, hose and generator – keep the koi pond topped-off.
    Ahh.., Summer in the boonies – gotta love it.

    “Stay Frosty !”

    • Sideshow with a reason – you can’t turn your back on your face. With Sideshow running oly, might want to check the forestry gear…just saying…

  6. Technology
    Flying Cars will never be a ‘thing’. Y’all can’t drive a standard car properly. I am not getting rear-ended at 3,000 feet by someone watching Tik Tok videos.
    * * *
    PCE inflation hits a three year high. Trillions have been wiped from the crypto vaults, hundreds of jobs lost on the crypto exchanges., Meta is cutting another 21,000 jobs – and yet the Dow Jones is up close to 800 points. Did Trump just promise free donuts !?? WTH !!??

    • As a local genius said in the Wed AM before the open – we are in trouble at the 35 dma “The very last chart above is the one which will resolve maybe this week. That small ascending trend line – if it holds – could mean higher into the Fourth. But, if it breaks, then the Fourth could accompany the bottom of a wave 3 down – depending on how events play out from here.” I expect synthetic growth from south of the border – nd campaigdn contributions however laundered drying up with drive market down by Friday – we are in a casino and the shills are talking higher but the ovals and the aggregates are shaking their heads in unison mumbling lower. wave 3 lower lows lower.

      • Shirely you jest ?

        No,. Im serious, and dont call me Shirely.

        Yo Greenshades and rest of Financial Peanut Gallery (You know who U are), I gotz a question regards T& A.

        No no,no Technical Analysis.
        – regards Candles and their WICKS.
        Yes I know there is school of thought regards wick trading. Not what I am after. I am looong a biotech stock that I have invested in for past 6 months or so, personal accounts and family accts. For some unknown to me reasons, the stock has been going up all week. The stock has blown out my previous analysis and decision tree assumptions. So forced to look farther back in time…way back.

        There in crumbled up Past lies a Gap in the daily chart. The GAP has been closed IF you count the Wicks on the Candles. If we count wicks, then there is a juicy GAP I want to see closed. If not – I am in Take Some Off the Table territory and need to act rather quickly.

        I violated my one own rules of Trading last exp (June) and let a Winning trade turn into a Loser (TLT) – so still smarting from that FU. I didnt lose with INTC Puts, but I didnt shit eithers. In fact taking other side of INTC now, as the story being told has changed.

        Anyways – Wicks Count in Gap Closings ?

        Prolly taking some off table in AM anyway, its a discipline thing, and seeing as how letting it slip cost me moolah last month.

        • As an astute PN reader – appreciating our Aggregate I am sure you can see how this is being used to play the sheep while the whole maket is running negative this week from last Thursday’s close;
          agg – dow snp nasdoq
          66065.75 51564.70 7500.58 26517.93
          66065.75 51564.70 7500.58 26517.93
          65606.38 51712.71 7472.79 26166.60
          64632.64 51666.84 7365.46 25587.04
          64536.35 51848.90 7358.22 25476.63
          64419.00 51920.62 7357.49 25368.60

          the left column is what matters – not what the talking heads yammer.

  7. Signals: RIMPAC ships of many nations are gathering around the Hawaiian islands for their month of naval exercises. The HF bands are crap. Spread spectrum stuff painting 4 to 6 mHz on the waterfall, 450 mHz buzz-saw over the horizon radar, and general HF noise of S8 on other ham bands. Turn off the radio and walk away for a month is the best solution!

  8. re: “The Rescuers”, June 22, 1977
    feat: French Navy deliver?

    This week marks the 211th anniversary of the abdication of Emperor Napoleon. Meanwhile various msm outlets report that the French Navy has boarded alleged Russian shadow fleet tanker Deliver off Sicily which is situated immediately south of Corsica. The oil tanker is said to be owned and operated by a concern headquartered in Hong Kong.

    The vessel began its seafaring journeys in 2000 as Jannat Alferdos II (ar: “the highest garden of heaven”?). Subsequently it sailed as Jag Laadki (hindi: “darling of the world”) followed by a renaming perhaps as Cosmic.

    Leaving blue waters behind, green-with-envy let us imagine images of a Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington aiding contemplation. Did publisher George end today’s ‘Urban epistle primed with Amazon having begun it with Venezuela? The latter’s Amazonas state, drained in part by the Black River, is named after the women warrior Amazons who had reached the southern Black Sea by Ancient Greek and Roman times.

    • Thx for bringing Tulsi’s exposure of Insider Trading to light (tired of just ‘Dancin in the Dark?, B.Springsteen lol!)

      https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-stock-trades-2026/
      ‘President Trump’s investment accounts traded between $212 million and $695 million in stocks and other securities over the first three months of the year — an unprecedented sum for a sitting president.’

  11. the recent activity in the rock is beautiful mother nature saying hey i want some respect , especially in a retrograde. yep we have treated her so bad for decades and she is sick of it

    • The Doors – When The Music’s Over

      What have they done to the earth, yeah?
      What have they done to our fair sister?
      Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
      Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
      Tied her with fences and dragged her down…

  12. B-coin is below 60K. Shirley has unrealized profits, but lost on different trade. Being a fearless trader and speculator works until it doesn’t.

    • No Ballz, No Blue Chips

      Get thee back to the Salt mines, 20 ton per day is what they pay for, best be gitting on with it..

      Mad skills enable a person to deftly dodge falling sharp edged objects. Tis what the Hypervibe G17 is for – maintaining BALANCE while the ground be moving underfoot.

      Falls can kill and are exponential or cluster in their occurrence. Just one starts the cascade, and I for one intend on staying upright and moving forward for a very long time to come.

      Speaking of falls…MSTR has almost filled its GAP, down. Talk about classic Buy The Dip trade for the history books…Buy July 95 Calls, while at same time Selling July 120 Calls for like $6 debit. Combine with bullish Put spread to reduce total Debit.
      Not advice – not even game play, just an idea that can be “paper traded” for Fun, no Loss or profit.

  13. you have taught me or educated me or enlightened me for many years for the price of a lunch I can’t thank you enough I don’t care about charts or that stuff I care about you and your ” lived experience ” Elaine stories also. you have been my first stop in the am fixing deck fixing riding mower etc it been so beneficial thanks so much blaze small town in north Idaho

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