Random Walk or Manipulation?

Manias are funny things.

After a while, when you watch the news flow and look at how markets operate, little bells begin going off now and then, especially when the market is on the verge of breaking to new 52-week highs, as was the case on Thursday.

First the set-up:

We were close to a breakout.  The S&P hit 2,120.49 during the session but closed at a modest 2,012.93 giving up a lot of its “gains” in the final hour of trading.

The Dow was more constrained: With a 52-week high of 18,288.6, the best the Dow could muster was 18,133.03 Thursday. 

And the NASDAQ, which hit a new 52-week high of 5,073.09, gave a chunk back by the close to finish at 5,056.06.

It’s when markets are at potential break-out points, like these, that we sit back and study the news flows carefully.

For example, there was an outflow of some ETF money that crossed at about 11:53 Eastern time and you can see how that (paradoxically?) seemed coincidental to a bump up in the market.  Funds redeployed, or?

And then there was that story from the A.P. about Russia claiming US forces were in eastern Ukraine.  That likely chilled out the final hour of trading. 

This morning, in the early going, things were relatively flat, but I mention this to you because once the market really breaks to the upside, we could run several hundred Dow points in a session, or two.  As we’ve been telling our Peoplenomics™ readers, the Trading `Model, which has been invariably bullish, seems to be doing far better than “gut trading.”

What this does is something else – if you’re planning on the end of the world any time soon in financial terms:  Since we know that historically, most major collapses don’t get organized until 55-days past a top, and since the odds of an upside breakout are very high, the earliest possible date for any kind of “collapsed talk” gets pushed out to 55 days some now, which would put us at June 18th or later.

No guarantees, and this isn’t financial advice.  It’s just that it’s worth noting this morning that barring lobbing of nukes or bunker-busters in the Middle East, no major earthquakes or other natural disasters, and assuming the Iran talks drag out past their next/latest rubbery “deadline” the prospects for a 1929-like market peak in the first week or two of September is starting to appear ever more likely.

For now, we’re content to watch for news flashes and study their timing and message. 

What is clear is that the global quantitative easings continue with China speaking today of further accommodations…and that should allow the global market binge to party on – dragging the US market up to stratospheric levels, along with it.

The hesitation would be that both China and Europe are still in the doldrums and that could mean a “sell in May and go away” event, with a break around June 18th.  Too early to bet on that, however, so just keep the fund switching numbers handy.

The “happy zone” for the 10-year Treasury seems to be about where we are and so regardless of what you may think of the Fed, the rally holding together is actually good news for any sane person who understands the costs attendant to global financial collapse.

If it comes, these are the good old days, so enjoy them to the fullest.

Durable Goods Data

Yum-yum.  Just the thing to go along with the cornflakes:

New Orders
New orders for manufactured durable goods in March
increased $9.3 billion or 4.0 percent to $240.2 billion,
the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase,
up two of the last three months, followed a 1.4 percent
February decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders
decreased 0.2 percent. Excluding defense, new orders
increased 2.6 percent.
Transportation equipment, also up two of the last three
months, drove the increase, $9.5 billion or 13.5 percent
to $80.3 billion.
Shipments
Shipments of manufactured durable goods in March,
up following two consecutive monthly decreases,
increased $2.7 billion or 1.1 percent to $246.7 billion.
This followed a 0.2 percent February decrease.
Transportation equipment, up three of the last four
months, drove the increase, $3.2 billion or 4.3 percent to
$78.0 billion.
Unfilled Orders
Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in
March, up following three consecutive monthly
decreases, increased $0.3 billion or slightly to $1,156.4
billion. This followed a 0.5 percent February decrease.
Transportation equipment, also up following three
consecutive monthly decreases, drove the increase, $2.3
billion or 0.3 percent to $734.5 billion.

Hey!  Wake up!  the clever writing resumed.

Apparently that didn’t have an effect:  The futures were singularly unimpressed with the data.  The Baltic Dry cargo index continues to hover around 2009 levels – 600’ish.

Vatican Attack Foiled

As Italian authorities raided a terrorist cell with designs on attacking the Pope’s place.

Silly Season

Say, here’s a fine problem for critics who don’t like the Clinton Cash book that is making waves.  It will make it tough for the SOWWDS/Hildebeast supporters to target the reporter/writer when his next book – one rumored to be about Jeb – comes out.,

G. Warming Notes

Winter is back with snow as far south as New Mexico.  (Does this mean chemtrails are working?)

Coming to Their Senses?  Ure’s Right Again!

Our long fore4cast merger blowup arrived!  Comcast has called off its big hoopdy with Time Waning.

Tooting Our Horn Alert!  Remember what I told you when this PoS deal was pimped to to very gullible  announced in early 2014?  Lemme refresh Ure memory:  From our Feb 13, 2014 report here:

Buyers and Sellers

Big Story in the Wall St. Journal this morning about how Comcast has agreed to buy Time Warner cable for $45-billion smackeroos.

Despite my high-powered consulting operation, somehow they overlooked calling me – either side.  Which is a damn shame because whether this merger makes sense comes down to one ugly/nasty:  Technology shift.

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Coping: Life & Death — Past the Dream State

If you’ve been around any length of time, you know I am as fascinated with dreams as predictors of future events – as I am with the ability of software to pick up coagulation areas in language and infer something about the future from that.

So let’s rewind to our vivid dream about an April earthquake – which hasn’t happened yet – and see if there there is anything to be learned.

The original “An Odd Earthquake Dream” was posted January 13th back here.

At the time, part of the quake was the description of a 0+ quake, West Coast, and in April.

Well, thankfully, the hot date for April has blown on by.  But not before leaving us a gift to ponder..

The premise of the dream was that there was a series of quakes up in the  Lakeview Oregon area and that when the 5.5 follow-on quake came, it would point to where the epicenter of this massive quake would be.

Well, here’s the interesting part:  On April 23 we had a 5.5 earthquake.  And this, was interpreted in the hours after my odd earthquake dream back in January, this way:

“One (and they are possibly a pairs) are in the 5.3 and 5.6 category and they connect with “Thursday” or “Friday” and after this, people who are involved will be going back to the city (this happens east of San Francisco).”

Well, there it was – April 23 – and a Thursday, so that leads me to draw some lines on the map and they point to the area 200 miles north of San Francisco.

One of the returning news crews will be stopping (on the way back to the city) to have something that’s like an apple fritter or apple scone – as a place somewhere in the area that is famous for those.

There were other oddities about the story too:  Lot’s of dog references, a kind of map of a state or national park area (it was shown as a kind of green glass layer under the area.

Obviously, the news crews and pie doesn’t make sense (now/yet, though perhaps in the future).  The dog reference is still “out there” too.  As to the maps of state parks, the line from the Lakeview area quakes through this one (on the 23rd, on a Thursday) gives us several.

First this is the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park, Humboldt-Redwoods State Park, and the Trinity National Forest all in the area described in the dream (lining up the quake swarm in Oregon with the 5.5).

All of which draws out focus to Cape Mendocino, but honestly do I expect a 9+ quake over the next 7-days in that area?

Statistically, No.  But the dream still haunts, so what was it about?

That’s a tough one to answer because it gets us off into the spiritual/metaphysical realms. 

Anyone who had studied the Electronic Voice Phenomena, would have good reason to believe that there is a possibility of some kind of communications with the “other side of the veil” of what we call life.  Seers know it, and so do we parents who have had “remote knowing” experiences with our children.  Vivid, undeniable knowing when it is possible no other way than through some undocumented communications channel.  And that channel may transcend death.

On the evidentiary side, we also have to look at data starting with Ray Moody’s book “Life After Life” that came out back in 1976, I think it was.

And let’s not overlook religions (as a group) because so many of them are predicated on some kind of afterlife (bardo, etc) and on the idea of reincarnation.  There’s also a “rewards program” that covers the waterfront from passing out virgins to eternal bliss, immortal pleasures and you know that list.

Yet there are a lot of interesting groups that have shown an interest in (to use the electronic voice phenomena as an example) contacting the “other side.”  Here’s a Wikipedia note on groups focused strictly on the EVP approach to what I refer to as “the veil…”

The Association TransCommunication (ATransC), formerly the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP),[57] and the International Ghost Hunters Society conduct ongoing investigations of EVP and ITC including collecting examples of purported EVP available over the internet.[58] The Rorschach Audio Project, initiated by sound artist Joe Banks,[39][40][59][60] which presents EVP as a product of radio interference combined with auditory pareidolia and the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Biopsychocybernetics Research, a non-profit organization dedicated to studying anomalous phenomena related to neurophysiological conditions.[61] According to the AA-EVP it is “the only organized group of researchers we know of specializing in the study of ITC”.[62]

Parapsychologists and Spiritualists have an ongoing interest in EVP.[63] Many Spiritualists experiment with a variety of techniques for spirit communication which they believe provide evidence of the continuation of life.[64] According to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, “An important modern day development in mediumship is spirit communications via an electronic device. This is most commonly known as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)”.[65] An informal survey by the organization’s Department Of Phenomenal Evidence cites that 1/3 of churches conduct sessions in which participants seek to communicate with spirit entities using EVP.[66]

The James Randi Educational Foundation offers a million dollars for proof that any phenomena, including EVP,[51] are caused paranormally…

The oddity that jumps out at me as a real IN YOUR FACE lack of focus is that humans as a group/species have not done a very good job – at all – of looking at the death barrier and figuring out how to get more effective communication going between this side and that.

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Lifestyle Collapse 101–A Dot-Connecting Lesson

A recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies has shed a lot of light on a topic most people aren’t even aware of. So let’s break it down for you this morning in simple terms: Immigration in the new Housing Bubble. Let’s back up a bit: First on the Immigration numbers.

Coping: With Sustainability Modeling / Eco-George

,A buddy of mine out in Hawaii – a genuine TV engineer – sent me a really good email. It’s a translation guide for Californians, who may consider moving to Texas, because of the drought, or just to get out of the Republic of Brown. A couple of examples to girt this framed right: Where a Californian may speak of an “ARSENAL of weapons” here in Texas that’d be a GUN COLLECTION. Similarly, “DELICATE WETLANDS” of Brownifornia would be called a “SWAMP” around here.

The Ultimate Prepper’s Low Power Stereo FM Radio Station

…for the end of the world. 

Sick and tired of the MSM?  Who isn’t! 

Tired of the crumby playlist you’ve head for the zillionth time on your FM station?

Want some information, so MP3’s aren’t ideal?

The radical prepper’s answer (and we have ours on the air) is to build your own radio station!

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Covering the Global News Shortage

The market is set to go up about 60-points on the Dow and the price of gold is still pegged right around $1,200 bucks. No news is….er…a problem. Other than some war ships about to show up off Yemen (with could become interesting) and one of China’s biggest real estate outfits being on the financial ropes, there’s not much else to cover for a site that is ostensibly about the economic long wave. Since neither of us likely is a high enough roller to be playing in the Chinese real estate markets, this really leaves the Yemen story front and center.

Coping: With MFMB and BBQ Season

We’ll get to MFMB in a minute – it’s my should-be patented secret to marital bliss.  But let’s start with the BBQ part since that takes less explaining.

This year’s competition started a week or so back, when Elaine’s son Brandon, who lives up in Tacoma, lit off his wood-fire BBQ and sent us the most delicious looking plate of ribs we’d seen either in a picture, or real life for that matter, in years.

So this past weekend we got out the BBQ here and started firing off the summer’s best.

As you can see in the top picture, Elaine likes breasts (don’t go there, we’re talking the damn chicken!) which has been rubbed with a mix of lemon-pepper marinade and K.C. Masterpiece seasoning.  On top of this goes some Jack Daniel’s  BBQ Sauce from the store and yessir, damn fine ‘Q.

My approach, off to the right here, is a little different.  Ure’s taste runs more to Asian so when I’m lazy I mix up a 50-50 of Very Teriyaki (which has enough garlic in it to be Italian/Asia) and mixed about 50-50 or whatever feels right with Kikkoman pre-made Teriyaki sauce.

This is poured over the chicken about six-hours before grilling.  First step is to toast it up on all sides, basting as you go.  A shot of tequila (warmed) will do a nice flaming glaze if you put some sugar and a teaspoon of Everclear in it…depends on if your home owners insurance is current).

After browning up, you set them to one side of the grill and then roast for about 30-40 minutes at 350’ish.  Experience teaches that the thermometer on a BBQ is useful.  So is a timer.

The next big BBQ plan this week is for my Chinese-flavored country style ribs.  Then we will send the Tacoma division of family a couple of pictures so they can have to wash the slobber of their monitors; like we did when the kids rib pictures showed up.

The recipe isn’t terribly difficult.  Try it – it’s to die for.

The sauce/marinade:

About 1 cup of brown sugar.

About 1/2 to 3/4 cup of soy sauce  (adjust to your desired salt/sweet taste)

About 4 tablespoons of mushed up Maraschino cherries with some of the juice to boot.  No, no pits or stems…

A heaping teaspoon, or better, maybe two teaspoons of ground ginger.

A half-dozen ground up garlic cloves

Several solid shakes of Cayenne pepper.  No…make it a bit more…lot’s more, depending on your fortitude and whether you like spicy or mild pork.

The lazy way to do this?  Take all these ingredients, and throw them in the Vitamix.  Hit high a few times (things will warm up, and melt since my chainsaw doesn’t have the power of the Vitamix.  Let it sit overnight so flavors blend.

Next morning toss the trimmed, fat-free ribs into a bowl, toss with about 3/4’s of the mix and wander off for 8-hours.  Work on something else.

When you are famished:  Heat the BBQ, quick brown on a hot flame, basting lightly with some sauce to get a nice glaze going.  Then kill heat on one side, slide the ribs over there, and turn the other burners down to maintain 350-400 degrees and have an adult beverages.

When you run out of things to talk about, or begin to stumble, or the chips and salsa aren’t enough, the ribs should be done.

Remove, cover with foil (keeps insects off them) and haul out the dipping sauce.  Made of…

1/4 cup catsup (or ketchup of however you spell it)

1/4 cup of  freshly ground prepared horseradish.

Long-time readers will remember this as our shrimp cocktail sauce, too.  Yes, dual purpose sauce and it does well with Chinese/Asian foods.  Heavier on the horsey, or not.  Depends how close the fire department is.

A purist would go to Tai Tung in Seattle and have real Chinese food, but it’s a 2,130 mile drive from here…so we make-do at home, instead.

Having grown up in Seattle’s Asian community, I am partial to “blow the roof of your mouth off, freshly made Chinese hot mustard.  The right way to do it is to mix up dry powder, give it 10-minutes to hot-up and then serve in a three-tray with sesame seeds and ketchup with a dash of honey and/or cherry juice it in.  That would be the RIGHT  thing to do.  Plum sauce, too, or Hoisin.  Nice dipping assortment.

Seems absurd in Texas to have to order a whole case of  Dynasty Mustard Powder, 2-Ounce Jars (Pack of 12) for $29-bucks, so I make do with the fresh prepared horseradish (just the horseradish, not bunch of wimpy sauce crap with it).  Anyone who buys premixed Chinese mustard probably likes frozen piazza, too.

All of these BBQ treats taste really good cold, or just barely warmed.  That’s one of the real tests of good BBQ – how is it cold?

Fine, so now I’ve got you thinking of BBQ – so what is MFMB?

Matching Food, Matching Breath.

Mr. Ure’s lone contribution to marital bliss.  Eat the same foods as your partner/spouse/whatever they are nowadays, and since body chemistry should roughly synch up over time, you will have similar breath!

(My other contribution to marital bliss [“whatever you say dear…”] hasn’t be adopted by large enough numbers to be statistically measurable.)

Gee, I don’t know which would more rewarding…being a cook or a marriage counselor, but I’ll go with cooking and whatever is behind Door Number 3.

Hell of a Woo-Woo Story

We were speculatin’ Monday on the possibilities of timelines, time jumps, thinking CERNtain thoughts and such in in popped this amazing report about the Woo being out and about this weekend:

“…oh yes, temporal reality -there-is-a-portal-in-my-bedroom- is alive and well.

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‘Nother Sucktitious Monday

Not sure it’s a word, but….After showing signs Friday that someone in the financial world (besides Ures truly) had brains, the market this morning is set to bounce hard and high while reality sinks in.

And the reality is what?

Well, in case you missed it this weekend, the IMF movers were warning us all that they are going to print more and pump just like we are, so the global printing festival – driving markets higher  – will continue at least a while longer.

What is some of the “sand in the Vaseline?”

To start with, the IMF is scared that Greece will stiff them on payments.  So our favorite financial dom is pre-scolding the petulant Greeks.

Filed under “50-shades of Euro” we can almost hear the Bankster’s telling the Greeks “Vee are go-ink to vip you and you vill like it!”  Uh-huh…sure. Greeks aren’t buying it.  Why should they be screwed so a banker gets a payday?

Since public opinion is easily spun, the next ham sandwich of distraction will be delivered in the form of boats of immigrants who are pouring in from Africa and points east…Sorry to hear about the dead in the capsizing of a ship this weekend, but it’s an ongoing problem because not many people want to live in war zones

Meantime, one of our well-informed readers suggests:

“Turkey and the Saudis will show their power.

This coming week Obama is having a meeting with Middle east leaders to discuss his Iran deal.The Turks and Saudi’s are as worried about Iran getting a nuke as Israel. If they come away from this meeting. Feeling betrayed by Obama. They may well make some preemptive power moves against Syria or Iran themselves.”

And that moves our scan of the World Messuation along to the Middle East. Saudi officials are just waiting and defending against a homeland oil processing or mall attack, because that is the likely blowback from going into Yemen.

The Houthi’s are thumbing their noses, and we await the arrival of the Iranian supply ships for the next outburst of break dancing on the military front.

Oh, and lighten up on your lib/dream bet on an Iran Deal:  The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards isn’t biting on any kind of inspection plan.  Is our imperial what’s his name gonna buy off on blind faith?  Nothing surprises us, anymore.  But congress?  Not frigging likely.

Our sage reader is right:  If the Obama administration doesn’t get their Iran deal, the whole thing could “go Chihuly.”  (If the reference doesn’t make sense, click here and put Ure thinking cap on.  Puddles of glass…OMG, are you like NOT on the bean yet, today?)

(cue some transition music)

Continuing our morning travel/news/log eastward, we find the Chinese have cut key reserve requirements, but as this CNBC report says, it sure looks like a desperation move.

The reason is simple:  In just over a month, the Hang Seng has gone up almost 14%. Go ahead, annualize that…I dare you.   And that would be a classic market bubble.

Globally, the (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) competing banks are all worried about what happens if something blows out the top end like this – and then collapses. 

Or, (going a bit more east) something like Japan re-implodes into another bout of deflation since they are having a real bitch of a time with hitting inflation targets.

There’s an interesting bet here:  The gnomes of Credit Suisse think Japan could fall back into deflation – and there’s good reason to think that.  But, the head of the JA central bank says “Naw…nothing to worry about – we got this…” or words to that effect.  I’ll take the gnomes and 10.

Fun little trip around the world this morning, huh?  All circular references because in a complex but still-closed system, anything blow up here will lead to a ripple or a nuke there.

As my deflationist pal Jas Jain writes (and he has been impeccably right about deflation so far, and sees much more to come…)

What is going to happen this time around is going to be lot different than the Crisis of 2008. I will shut up if the global depression doesn’t begin during 2016-18. China would be a big contributor to the coming crisis and would take the house (the global economy) down.

During the worst depression in centuries, democracies would fall one by one and many countries would disintegrate.

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Coping: Are there “Temporal Agents”

The conspiracy mindset is fascinating.  In that many things in world seem to happen “by chance.”

But there are limits to coincidence.

One of our readers up in the PNW has been on the lookout for a major west coast quake, as have I.  But for different reasons, perhaps.

In my case, it is because of a vivid dream back in January and some new work from Chris McCleary over at the www.nationaldreamcenter.com site, which seems to suggest that prophetic dreams are not likely to foretell the future in an even way.

For example, some “hits” in predictive dreams happen as little as two or three days before an event.  Yet others (well documented, like the Lindsay Wagner missing a flight in Chicago years back when the DC-10 crashed, happened only an hour, or so, before flight time.

Yet, in other cases, “word” from the future can spill out weeks, months, and in the case of a special class of prophetic/seers, it can be years and even centuries ahead.

This weekend, reader “Bill” up in the Pacific Northwest was kind enough to send me a note about what seemed like a conspiracy to occur in order to force a massive seismic event…

“…we just missed another False Flag that did not transpire on 4/11, last Saturday…

Instead, there was this ship with an undisclosed cargo headed to open waters where it never made it past Clallum Bay, but it was actually as far north as Canadian waters.

All systems on the ship failed simultaneously. It took a whole day to tow it back to Port Angeles. It was in the papers Sunday and TV too…

All news articles concerning this ship have since been de-linked by search engines…”

The balance of the email went on to describe how there were dark forces planning to drop a “special” into the Juan de Fuca plate convergent zone, thus triggering a quake.

Interesting theory because it is so difficult to “prove a negative.”

And now, it doesn’t mean we are “out of the woods” either, but more on that another time.

The point I was getting to is that temporal agency has shown up in a number of places in the Mainstream Media and along with micro events, the macro picture is certainly worth considering.

The Big Picture goes something like this: Let’s say for the sake of argument that there was a conspiracy to drop some package onto the Juan de Fuca plate in order to cause a quake.  (I am NOT saying this was the case, but go with me on it…).

Using the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, would could hypothecate that if there is any form of temporal control, then the ship going off to drop a “hypothesized quake maker” would have been a dandy point for a reality split.

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A Disruptive Technology Primer

Being an ex vocational college president, I’m  big on “Learning by Doing.”  This morning we visit the “Let’s Wreck the World and Call It Progress” department.

So this morning we run through some of my checklist of major items that are likely to change in our lives and become fence posts that “corral the future” over the next 5-10 years – items which can WRECK the economy.  While the future seems to be limitless and unbounded, there are always “bounding events” coming into view, much as a squeeze chute works at the local cattle ranches.  The future happens “in the pen“.

In Wednesday’s report, I describe The Big Melt.  That’s when the virtual world starts to creep out into our comfortable (old) here and now.  Virtual blends real into something new.

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Consumer Prices, Vacations, Reflections on Deflation

First things first:  The latest Consumer Prices report is hot off the wire from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2 percent in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Over the last 12 months, the all items index declined 0.1 percent before seasonal adjustment. Increases in the energy and shelter indexes more than offset a decline in the food index and were the main factors in the rise of the seasonally adjusted all items index.

The energy index rose 1.1 percent as advances in the gasoline and fuel oil indexes outweighed declines in the electricity and natural gas indexes. In contrast, the food index declined 0.2 percent, with the food at home index posting its largest decline since April 2009.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.2 percent in March, the same increase as in January and February. Along with the shelter index, a broad array of indexes rose in March, including medical care, used cars and trucks, apparel, new vehicles, household furnishings and operations, and recreation.

The index for airline fares, in contrast, declined for the fourth time in the last 5 months. The all items index declined 0.1 percent for the 12 months ending March.

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Coping: Life at the “End of the String” ElectriPrepping

Real Life Prepping Time!  This morning’s column will be published in sections due to power outages in our area.

The power went off (inconveniently) just as I was sitting down to write this morning’s column which was going to focus on our pals Gaye and Sheldon (Gaye writes www.backdoorsurvival.com) who are taking their ham radio tests this weekend.  I wrote an article for Gaye on programming their Baofeng HandyTalkies using CHIRP software.  It can be read over here.

As you may remember, UrbanSurvival is solar powered.  Out first big investment came in 2007 and that means our battery bank (8 large golf cart batteries) is aging.  The second 8 aren’t far behind.  We keep it up with regular watering, but with the air conditioning on and some other decent loads, battery string #1 decided to give up the ghost about half way through the first run-through on writing this column.

Since the SuperComputer is on a great big backup, I didn’t worry about it – which goes to show you who the idiot is.

Never to be undone, though, I took a laptop (the one from my alternate work station in the house) and fired it up.

Things I’d thought through seem to be holding together for now, but here are some gotchas to consider.

1.  Will I have coffee?

I lucked out on this.  I’d just made 8 cups in the machine, so no issues there.  Had I not, it would had added 20 minutes to fire up the BBQ and set about doing coffee the old-fashioned way.

2.;  Will I have food?

No problems there:  Breakfast lately has been a handful of vitamins and supplements – along with exactly three almonds.

This morning – screw it – a bag of Oberto Teriyaki beef jerky and more coffee.

3.  Will I have Internet?

Yes – and no. 

Yes, the satellite system is up (Excede) but the DSL on one phone line is down (see earlier note about one inverter stack going offline) and the other is in the house for convenience.  So we’re down to one on-ramp to the net and one string of batteries.

Since I don’t know a) how long before power comes back on and b) I don’t want to run out to the power center and keep looking at meters, I will just update this periodically until 6:30.

4.  Is this an end of the world EMP event?

No.  But it certainly does a good job of cranking up the brain cells and gets me back to my marine electrical days when systems that are robust and dependable were (and are) the order of the day.

I don’t like being on emergency power, but that’s where we are this morning.

Sort of like Universe is handing us a pop quiz about survival planning.

Everything worked – and even with an inconvenient backup failing (which means a small fortunate into fresh batteries) it will means that we persisted and prevailed…a good thing and I am sure there’s a lesson in here somewhere…

What lessons, exactly?

1.  When you have older golf cart batteries, you need to periodically do discharge tests and replace them preemptively. I didn’t  because it’s a big expense.  There are a total of 16 golf carts and that can put a hole in the party & entertainment budget for months.

2.  We did the right thing having all three modems/networks are on different power sources.  HOUSEDSL is on mains power.  WILDBLUE is on inverter 2 and battery string 2, WESTELL is on inverter 1/battery string 1.

WILDBLUE is the one that’s up this morning and has survived so far.  Point is, where you need ultra high reliability, and the cost isn’t too bad, spread your bets around so you have power when and where you need it.

3.  Have lots of extension cords and keep them in good repair.

If the power isn’t on in a reasonable time, say 10 AM, or so, by which time the solar should be putting out decent power, we will run an extension from the power center to the fridge in the house.  The freezer is out in the storage room. 

4.  How is the propane?

No worries there!  I just a couple of weeks ago filled up two twenty pounders and a forty pounder.  So that would be enough to make coffee for a while. 

After the small bottles of propane are done, we have 400 gallons of the stuff in our big tank.  And with two rocket stoves behind that, we will not want for heat or fire.

5.  Batteries and flashlights?

We have a place that serves as a bar when company comes over.  (Oilman 2 came by a month or two back, for example).  But when there’s no company around, that’s where all of our flashlights live.

Someone you don’t appreciate when the power goes out – if you haven’t been through it for a while is…

a.  Using the bathroom is a bit different when done by flashlight.

b.  Doing dishes by flashlight is different – and you’ll see the value of solid  high level interior lighting in short order.

c.  Finding things (around the house, like a bag of beef jerky from the prep kit) is a lot easier with light than without.

6.  What about Wireless Accessories

Oh, yeah…THEM!

I came out this morning, turned on SuperComputer and actually believed the outage may have been EMP because a keyboard was on the fritz.  Nope.  Just a low battery.  We’ve become huge faces of the ultra long-life lithium batteries, with apologies to native people of Bolivia.

We always have a bunch on hand.  Amazon has the Energizer Ultimate Lithium AA Size Batteries – 20 Pack for about $35-bucks, which is what’s running the keyboard again.

Just in the past few minutes, the power came on again.  Long enough to run the a/c unit at the house for five minutes.  But then it went off again.

Whatever the problem is, it’s confounding the power crews.

7. When should we start the generator?

Ah…thought about that.  It has diesel in it and is (more or less) ready to go.  (power just came on, maybe it will stay up this time?)

The problem with the generator is that it is a PITA to set up and run.  One thing I’ve been thinking about is getting one of those 10 kW power take off units for the Kubota.

If you’re a city slicker, the PTO is the shaft on the tail end of a tractor that various farm implements plug into.

And that gets us to the problem with farm PTO units.  I don’t know when the last time you pulled a piece of power equipment off a tractor, but it verges on real work.

First, you have to put the tractor where you want the piece of equipment dropped.  Then, you might want to put some 4X4 blocking under it, so it doesn’t go all the way to the ground.  Makes hook up next time a bit easier.

Then you get on the shaft, which has a spring loaded collar on it – it’s greasy and filthy or you haven’t been working your tractor.  Once the PTO shaft is loose, you can tie it up or block in place because when you put the equipment back on the tractor, it’s a pain to try and get things aligned just so.

Then off come three hitch pins big as your thumb and you finally have a “free tractor.”

Reverse the process at the next piece of equipment, backing up just so will take a minute, and then go through the same spasms of effort and flood of curse words all over again.

You should now be on the verge of understanding why I haven’t invested the dough for a tractor PTO driven generator.  They aren’t cheap.  Amazon has the PTO Generator Kit 10 kW (10,000 Watt) 3 Point Carrier and PTO Shaft Drive Line Included listed for a tad over $2,026.

Northern Tool has a 13 kW generator down the page over here for $1,500, but that’s before you get a shaft, mounting kit, or a trailer to drag the thing around on.

Most people (unfarmerly types, if that’s a word) don’t appreciate that when a PTO is pushing out 10-13 kW of power there’s a fair bit of torque involved, so you can just let the genset flop around on the ground.  Wide base or mobile mountain is mandatory and I like the look of the Amazon unit that mounts on a three point rig, because that is designed to pick up the torque issue. 

Not that you’d see a trailer flop around, but I’ve never figured out just how many foot pounds of torque is involved when the house A/C unit kicks on.  It’s a big starting load  because our 6 kW diesel whines, complains, belches out black smoke and just barely won’t get the job done.

A 7-8 kW unit would work, but at long as we’re talking checkbooks and dreams, how about a 10-13 kW unit for a little safety margin?

Also on this kind of generator solution, be ready to pay an electrician ($500_) labor to hook up a transfer switch ($600-$1,000) and then get the right cables to power everything up according to Hoyle.

Even if we popped for the dough, here’s the problem:  We would be in the unenviable position of trying to figure out when to take off the bush hog (a thrashing mower we use all the time…think of it as a five food WeedWhacker).  Doing this kind of labor at night in the rain (invariably when it’s needed) is just not my cuppa tea.

Since we’re having this impromptu refresher on prepping for power outages,  I have to give you my speech about backfeeding and how dangerous that is.

If you EVER hook up a generator in an emergency situation, make triple-damn sure you have isolated your home, ranch, office, or whatever, from the Grid.  In other words, pull the main breakers so you CAN NOT FEED POWER BACK DOWN THE LINE.

This is critical.  BACKFEEDING KILLS LINEMEN!

It’s also why I love the Outback Grid Interactive system we chose almost 10 years ago.  The beauty of it is that when the grid fails, the Outback system physically disconnects from the line with a relay and that makes backfeeding impossible.

I’ve set ours up so that even when the power comes back up, it will wait a full minute for power to come back on.  I want it to sniff the incoming power really well, and make sure that it’s not just a bump of wires as linemen do their work.

Well, there we have it.

A column on emergency power and I didn’t even plan for it.  The mains power came up about two minutes ago, the inverter/chargers are now refilling the battery banks, and Mr.

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Data, Depression, Discourse, and Decepticons

Quadruple D’s this morning:  Let’s start off with the data part which deals with the Census report on housing starts:

“BUILDING PERMITS
Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in March were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,039,000. This is
5.7 percent (±2.0%) below the revised February rate of 1,102,000, but is 2.9 percent (±0.9%) above the March 2014 estimate of
1,010,000.
Single-family authorizations in March were at a rate of 636,000; this is 2.1 percent (±0.9%) above the revised February figure of
623,000. Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 378,000 in March.
HOUSING STARTS
Privately-owned housing starts in March were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 926,000. This is 2.0 percent (±13.0%)* above the
revised February estimate of 908,000, but is 2.5 percent (±11.5%)* below the March 2014 rate of 950,000.
Single-family housing starts in March were at a rate of 618,000; this is 4.4 percent (±12.3%)* above the revised February figure of
592,000. The March rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 287,000.
HOUSING COMPLETIONS
Privately-owned housing completions in March were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 823,000. This is 3.9 percent (±10.4%)*
below the revised February estimate of 856,000 and is 5.8 percent (±10.2%)* below the March 2014 rate of 874,000.

There are almost ALWAYS more permits than starts so the real YoY numbers – actual starts and actual completions, are where the disruptive technology bites – which I will explain in a moment.. 

Usually in a “recovery” housing is rolling by now, but what are you reading, hmmmm?  The simple answer is housing is under pressure – and that deserves some deeper thought:

The problems of housing are manifold.  Ure’s Notes shows why housing isn’t going anywhere fast as a number of bullet points:

    • People don’t have enough disposable income to let oodles of people buy new homes.
    • Thanks to the last housing bubble, people have decided not being in debt up  to Ure ass is a smart thing, not dumb.
    • At some point, someone besides you-know-who will figure out that the LBGT movement is a very good approximation of a disruptive technology.  How so?  Think about it:  People once single by gender choice can now cohab, get tax breaks, and halve housing cost.  Out the other end (if you’ll pardon the ill-advised  pun) there are no kids, so who needs schools…
    • And besides, even with kiddies, with home schooling and a PC who needs schools, and so who needs to move to….  (rinse, repeat and let’s save the forests while we’re at it…maybe Ted and Jane can buy up some more ranch land…)

    Well, you kinda see how all this piles up.  Now toss in a double handful of job insecurity because gubmint is just too damn dumb to demand technology impact statements, and then here come the robots to do everything and Uretopia is almost here.

    More, or less….

    Depression

    And this gets us to the second headliner this morning:  Depression and in deflation.  We label tomorrow Prices and Anagram day because Consumer Prices will be our lead item tomorrow and we can hardly wait for my favorite economic anagram at 10 AM Eastern tomorrow, the LEI – also known as leading economic indicators.

    But in the spirit of Depression, here are a few you can ponder.

    First, my consigliore is absolutely hysterical about the WSJ story about how “ Tumbling Interest Rates in Europe Leaves Some Banks Owing Money on Loans to Borrowers– Subzero rates have put some lenders in an inconceivable position.”

    Yeah, I’d say that’s a nice Depression marker.  Banks paying people, in effect, to keep their loans.

    Other samplings:

    UK narrowly misses deflation, price growth steady but let’s check in a month or three…

    Greece deflation slows, but doesn’t stop as prices fall 2.1% YoY in March 2015 …

    And in Forbes: Excellent News; The Next Recession Could Bring Wage Deflation

    Since the idea of working as hard – or harder – for less, is depressing, we’ll call this section self-evident.

    Discourse (De Plane!  De Plane!)

    With our airplane in annual maintenance, things of a skyward nature have my attention.  Especially when a couple of wing bracket attach point rivets are being updated to Jo-bolts in compliance with an airworthiness directive (AD).

    So when the search area for MH-370 is about to be doubled because no wreckage has been found yet, I prefer to cast the whole search in the light of what happens around here when I misplace the tractor keys.

    Seems like everything is in the last place you look, and it may work out that way for 777’s. Not just car keys.

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