Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve mentioned our latest “adventure in odd/transporting home design.”

Our latest project has been to transform the area between the house and t’other building which houses the shop/office/Panama’s apartment into something different.

The hard part was figuring out the right thought model.

There are a couple of large trees on hand.  while it would be tempting to hack them down and turn the area into a huge greenhouse, that seemed like too much work.  Putting in a pool (and using it as a heat sink, crossed my mind, too.

But in the end, a couple of pea gravel loads from John the Dump Truck Guy, seemed best, so we (mostly Elaine) tore out the odd plant that had taken root and in came the landscape cloth and then 3-4 inches of pea gravel.

And it looked OK, except something was missing.  What might that be?

The answer was some research into Japanese rock gardens.  They are NOT maintenance-free.  But damn they look good.

So I’ve spent some time over on this site, looking at the various approaches.  And, unbeknownst to me, Panama built a big wooden rake – about 2 1/2 fee wide – with teeth about every 3-inches or so.

Turns out our space was suitable for hiraniwa – flat Japanese rock garden. Although in size and sense of place, it’s more like the karesansui description (of dry rock gardens).

We may change it up a bit:  The Japanese rock gardens usually have a very few large rocks which act as visual focal points…but we’ve decide to use an old stump-root, or something like that which might be round on the property.  Or, I might weld up an oilrig sculpture and stick it in the gravel – a kind of statement about oil and what’s pending in the South China See where Japan and China have competing claims over oil resource under water.

Panama has a pretty nice “balanced art piece” out in front of his windows made out of balanced cedar logs.  Kind of like a big mobile jutting up from the ground. 

Elaine’s drifted into the spirit of this too; she’s carefully raking circles around the bases of the trees.

In a more controlled environment (like a city) we would have used sand (traditional) but because of the size of the area (35×50, roughly) we used pea gravel.  The other reason on the pea gravel is because I can take a leaf blower to it; something you can’t do with sand.

Visually, the effect of seeing pea gravel at 30-feet feels like sand at 10…so we shall see how it works over time.

Fun to rake and play in…sort of like an adult sandbox.  Not terribly expensive and it doesn’t kick up dirt and dust from the mower. 

Rocks don’t generally need fertilizer and special handling…but this being where we are in human history, I’m sure one of these days a specialized tool (besides a few rakes) will show up on the net.  We’ll be either buyers or toolmakers when they do.

Membership in the North American Japanese Garden Association is something we’re pondering, too.  Their website (here)  is worth looking at as some really wonderful gardens go scrolling by on their header.

Membership is $85 for a basic/basic but $150 to get their Journal.  Depending on how important your “outdoor vibe” is, it’s better than just tossing a few railroad times and sod in and calling that landscaping.

Japan Woodworker has a good assortment of green and white pruning paste and other garden supplies over here.  Training wires for your Bonsai, perhaps?

More practically, our best regards to Frank Tashiro of Tashiro Hardware in Seattle who turned 93 in January.  A few of us early Seattleites (who were there before California moved north) can remember Tashiro Hardware’s early days, just south of “Muscatel Meadows” south of the King County Courthouse.

Japanese Economics

Reader asked this one:

“with the strong dollar, is it time to buy a Japanese car?

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But first, an off topic remark or three…

My consigliore,  just back from a hard week of skiing in Montana, bashed me good on the phone yesterday by pointing out that a major decline of exports doesn’t necessarily mean collapse of the GDP…and he was a) better rested, b) more caffeinated, and c) right.

After we kicked around the likely date for the Big West Coast earthquake I dreamed about back in January, he let on that in his scans of the net, there’s been an uptick in tsunami talk.  Showing up in prophecy and dream boards and worth noting.  And you do know what happens Saturday, right?

109th anniversary of the major quake in 1906 that devastated the city by the bay.  My pal then reminded me that there was also an 8.2 that year in Valparaiso, Chile.

So keep an eye on the volcanoes which are in uptick mode:  Causing smoke and ash at increased levels on the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula now, and last month the one down in Chile that seems to percolate as a quake precedent, popped off, as well.

Yet another possible precursor:  150 dolphins that beached in the past week in Japan have mostly died.  Australia pilot whales worth watching, too.

Just something to be aware of while you make a fortune on Wall St.  Or, holding up banks if you’re ethically inclined.

—

Which gets us to this morning’s data sets:

PPI first because it’s boring – but if you can read these far, you’ll make it through the rest of the column:

“The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.2 percent in March, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices moved down 0.5 percent in February and 0.8 percent in January. On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand decreased 0.8 percent for the 12 months ended in March. (See table A.) In March, more than half of the rise in final demand prices can be attributed to a 0.3-percent advance in the index for final demand goods. Prices for final demand services moved up 0.1 percent. Within intermediate demand, prices for processed goods edged down 0.1 percent, the index for unprocessed goods dropped 1.7 percent, and prices for services rose 0.2 percent.

Final demand goods: The index for final demand goods moved up 0.3 percent in March following eight consecutive decreases. A major factor in the advance was prices for final demand energy, which rose 1.5 percent. The index for final demand goods less foods and energy increased 0.2 percent in March.

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First: I won’t dignify the candidate’s run for the White House by repeating her name.  From here to the end of primary season, I’ll refer only to “She of whom we don’t speak.”  [SOWWDS}

If SOWWDS wants an ad. she can buy it.

But I will offer some free campaign advice:  Change ad logos.

The one rolled out Sunday – which showed up uninvited in my email – begging for money, no less – is a fine example  of political spam.

What’s more, it’s easily spoofed by anyone with PowerPoint handy – as you can see.

An arrow pointed sideways?  Isn’t America supposed to be “up”?  Maybe our lone remaining democratic reader will disagree and can explain it to us.  But the majority around here (you and me) are tired of sideways, same-old, and do-over richy-rich aristocrats who should have been put out to pasture long ago.

The second bit of free advice is double-check your work.

Says over in this report that “Clinton’s press office left an embarrassing typo in its press announcement, saying that she had ‘fought children and families all her career’. 

Nice move.  Around here we call that “truth in advertising.”  Take it from the world leader in typos.  Can’t run a campaign?  Then can’t run a country, I figure.

Third – and final suggestion for this morning:  Any time a multigazillionaire lawyer uses phrases like “everyday Americans” sit on your wallet.

Related:

From our news analyst in Winnipeg, which may be the last remaining rational spot on the planet:

Dear Mr.

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Best I can remember, the first time I heard the phrase was at the kitchen/dinner table at about age 8, or so.

My mom had some question or other, and pappy didn’t have an answer.  “I’ll ask the Board of Directors tonight at work.”

We were eating at 10-minutes to five so pappy could leave the house by 5:15 and drive the 20 minutes, or so, up to the fire house in West Seattle.  Engine 37 is at the highest point in the city.

A little trivia here:  The reason fire houses were always built at the tops of hills if possible, was so the horses could have an easy – and fast – run downhill to a fire.  Most people don’t know that one – not sure if it’s in Trivial Pursuit, or not.

Anyway, pappy was almost always early for roll-call, but he always scheduled enough time for a bridge opening.  The high level West Seattle Bridge hadn’t been built yet.

The board of directors were the other firemen on his crew.  Fire departments in big cities had different shift, but they followed a paramilitary org chart; platoons, battalions, and such.  And pappy’s “board of directors” was the crew he worked with.  There wasn’t a lot of turnover in platoons.

Gather any three or four firemen, you could get an answer to just about anything, and while washing hose, cleaning up after drills or training, it was always good to have a fresh topic to kick around. Made the work go faster.

My mother’s question – and don’t hold me to this – was about some obscure aspect of gardening, if memory holds.      

Joe had come up a street-smart Italian, Dave was the high-roller who owned a 50-foot boat, and I forget some of the other fellas.  But they all referred to pappy as “the encyclopedia.” He just didn’t know gardening well, having advised me from birth “Never put in a bigger garden than your wife can take care of…”

It wasn’t the answer that mattered in this case.  It was the form of decision-making that mattered.  One I’ve never forgotten.  Everyone needs a “board of directors.”

The concept has been around forever.  Some called it a “master mind group” in the early days of the PMA (positive mental attitude) movement, which was in some ways a precursor to the prepper movement.

When you look at most successful people, you’ll find most of them have a “board of directors” or master mind group.  Some, especially in politics, just get called the “inner circle.” If you’re a drug dealer, it’s your posse, and so on.

Without further delay, I have an important announcement to make.

YOU have just been appointed to my personal board of directors. 

As luck would have it, there’s a thorny problem that is bugging me (in a literal sense as you’ll see):  We are being over-run by June bugs down at the hangar this year.

Oh, I’ve sprayed.  Even got the security light turned off.  But there’s some magic about my hangar in particular that had become incredibly attractive to June bugs. 

Since I spray the place religiously – and since we don’t live in the space – I took the electric leaf blower down Sunday and dispatched 5,000 of them – carcasses-  back out onto the grass from whence they came.

But they keep coming back.

In fact, by the time I was done on one side of the taxiway, the hardy (*Boston marathoner type) bugs were already headed back to the finish line inside the hangar.  Invisible to Ures truly.

So your first problem has a Board Member for you is to figure out how to solve the problem.  Selling the airplane or moving to a different hangar are off the table.  The poisons work, but the smell of dead June bugs is not particularly nice.

It eats about 80-minutes a week says my time log. Get the blower, drive to airport, blow out hangar, lock up, 10-minutes for social chit-chat at the airport office, and then back out to our place..

The mechanic, who’s doing the annual maintenance check in the hangar presently complains about running over them with this creeper.  I expect he’ll ding me a bit on the bill, too, since it’s no fun to pick up a June bug instead of the 10-40 screw for an inspection cover. 

Ideally, someone would come up with a simple answer for something to repel them.  I’ve thought about a mothball at opposite corners of the hangar, but I don’t know if they’re legal anymore.

No trap suggestions, though.  I don’t want to have another project like emptying traps every day or three.

Send me an email – and ask all your friends, too, since I assume you already have an informal board of directors yourself. 

“What repels June bugs?”

By the way, Wikipedia reports mothballs do, indeed, have some risk to them:

The US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has determined that 1,4-dichlorobenzene “may reasonably be anticipated to be a carcinogen“. This has been indicated by animal studies, although a full-scale human study has not been done.^[8] The National Toxicology Program (NTP), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and the state of California consider 1,4-dichlorobenzene to be a carcinogen.^[9]

Exposure to naphthalene mothballs can cause acute haemolysis (anemia) in people with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency.^[10] IARC classifies naphthalene as possibly carcinogenic to humans and animals (see also Group 2B).^[11] IARC points out that acute exposure causes cataracts in humans, rats, rabbits, and mice. Chronic exposure to naphthalene vapors is reported to also cause cataracts and retinal hemorrhage.^[12] Under California’s Proposition 65, naphthalene is listed as “known to the State to cause cancer”.^[13]

Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder revealed a probable mechanism for the carcinogenic effects of mothballs and some types of air fresheners.^[14][15]

Mothballs are a neurotoxin – especially those made of 1,4-dichlorobenzene – and need to be treated as such. They have been used for solvent abuse, causing a variety of neurotoxic effects.^[16][17]

Mothballs and other products containing naphthalene have been banned within the EU since 2008.^[18][3]

Toxin-free alternatives to control clothes moths include freezing, dry cleaning, washing in hot water, or thorough vacuum cleaning.^[19][20] Camphor is no longer recommended as a moth repellent, due to its toxicity.

I’ve thought about cedar oil as an alternative, but I’m not sure if that wouldn’t just mask the smell of dead bugs better. And, it ain’t cheap.

So send them answer along pronto.  Operators are standing by, this is a free call, this is a special offer, ends soon.

Oh, and congrats on your appointment to the Board of Directors.  I did mention, I hope, that this is a non-profit and no liability protection for board members is offered?

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Remember in yesterday’s column how I told you I would have a stiff drink at the ready and be on the edge of my Lazy Man recliner waiting for the Fed’s latest money printing confessional due out in the weekly H.6 money stocks report?

Well, NSS, it was worse than I thought.  On a three months annualized basis, M1 is exploding at 16% and M2 is printing blasting away at 9%.

But as bad as these are, the monthly change rate – when you annualize it – works out to?

M1 = 29.8%  and M2 = 13%.  Monthly change, annualized.

Yee gads!  The hidden Weimar is here. 

One of our readers, obviously a genius, sent along a fine explanation which I will have to paraphrase because his original is lost somewhere in my 6-terabyte wasteland. 

The real deal is that the Fed is not gong to raise rates.  For the past several years they have been saying a rate hike is just six months off.  but see how it never happens?  It CAN’T happen.

The reason the fed will NEVER be able to raise rates is the instant they do, the whole compounded national debt balloon will pop and America will be bankrupt on the spot.

So they really have driven us into a box canyon and there’s no way for the herd to get out…

So yes, that IS (take it to the bank) the hard reality  that no one seems to be wanting to talk about.

It also underscores how BAD DEFLATION IS RUNNING.  Just in general terms, if M2 is going up 9% and reported consumer inflation is going up somewhere between 0 and 2% (toss a dart, it doesn’t effing matter) where is the other missing money going?

Into the rat hole of dark pools of capital.

The rich are piling up money left and right because falling interest rates have driving them into cash accumulation mode and it’s going to blow up the country – like it does in every Great Depression.

Here’s why:  When I graduated from high school, I dreamed of making a million dollars:  That would give me $70,000 a year income for life, I figured, with interest rates running 7%.  After I made a million dollars in a 7-year period “playing the game well” I noticed something was wrong.

With inflation missing in action (despite the Fed’s printing festival), care to guess how much money you’d need salted away to get $70.000 a year of income at 0.5% interest – which you’d be lucky to find?  (and without drawing down capital?)

$14-million!

Sadly, this is all true and it’s only a matter of how long it will take the rest of the country to wake up to the -ugly as sin- economic reality.

Oh, sure, when it happens, everyone will come back to the UrbanSurvival campfire,. pull up a rock and exclaim “Why, no one saw it coming!”  And, as always, they’d be wrong.

The ONLY game in town is estimating how high this steaming lump of shit can get stacked on made-up money before it all comes down in a putrid heap.

I’m guessing we could have as long as three more years.  The market ran up 5.6 times its starting level from its 1921 lows to the 1929 high.

Since the 2009 lows, 6,627 on the Dow roughly, you can run the numbers out and see we’re only about 2/3rds of the way to completely bazitzu crazy. 

Which is why you can buy 50 new cars with zero percent down, while we all sit in the Roaring Twenties replay and kid ourselves about what geniuses we are at picking the right investments.

The question isn’t whether you’re nuts…only whether you’ll be a winner or loser when “all comes down.”

Shall we move on to brighter topics?

The Slow Collapse of Globalism

It’s coming – it’s just that the “free traders” don’t see it yet.  We – unburdened by million, minions, and a Gulfstream – are able to see things a bit more clearly.

Take this morning’s just release report on import/export prices.  They argue that thinks are far from Hunky and Dory Land:

“Year on year export prices are down 6.7% and import prices are down 10.5% year on year.”

Another sign of dropping international trade is the drop in the Baltic Dry Index – which (yet again) continues stuck at levels not seen since the 2009 market lows.

Then there was this part of the Retail Trade numbers – inventory is building: And pardon the bad highlighter but you see how inventory tends to build before crap hits the fan?

This is no guarantee that trouble is on the way.

It’s already here – circling the block.  You just don’t see it yet.

Doesn’t matter to the market – futures are up.  Here, have some free money kid , and shut up.

No Wreck on the Freeway?

I know how important it is for gawker nation to slow down and look at video of breaking news.  So the Blaze had some links to the tornados in the upper Midwest overnight that should burn half a cup of coffee’s worth.

It’s OK, no one works on Fridays any more.

So Much for an Iran Deal

Yes, the Supreme Leader of Iran says the White House is lying and that we have devilish intentions toward Iran.

Could it be that the more centrifuges are spun up, the greater the odds that nuclear materials will be used for something other than keeping the lights on? Naw….

Madness on Bordering

While a man popped in Aridzona has been deported to Mexico 20 times, we’re also reading how another human wave of 40,000 kids is on the way.

As we reported for our Peoplenomics™ readers recently, the drought which is getting so much press in the USA is actually WORSE in Mexico so you ain’t seen nothing yet on border crossings.

The Price of Freedom

…to roam the internet is likely to be going up, figures this report.  The recent FCC decision/power grab means there may be higher fees coming to support rural phone improvements. 

When can I get fiber out here in the outback?   Right now it’s a fog mirror vs. fiber race – rural phone providers are in no hurry to speed up the net in the hinterlands…but like so many government programs it’s big on talk and tax, yet slow to actually change things here in fly-over country.

If I could actually get a due-by date on 10 MIPS I wouldn’t mind the Universal Service Fee but it’s mostly not helping us a bit.  If you live in a big city, it’s JAT (just another tax).

It’s a trade off, likely to be arranged by gubmint:  Ure doesn’t get fiber, you don’t get to keep your money.  That is the game, right?

Is She Really?

Hillary Clinton is set to announce on Sunday.  In truth she’s been running for the White House a lot longer – probably since marrying Bill.

As one radio bloviator noted, this signifies the great change from race being the hot ticket in politics to gender coming out for 2016.  Man-haters of the world unite!

Gridding for Trouble

From “warhammer”:

George,

The U.S. national power grid’s vulnerability has been a poorly kept secret for at least two decades:

<http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/04/08/power-grids-failing-infrastructure-at-risk-of-cyberattack/?intcmp=latestnews>

The backbone of America’s critical national infrastructure, the grid enables virtually all communication, commerce, heating, cooling and lighting. Taking it down would be crippling.

A wise adversary would diligently work to exploit any weakness or dependency in the grid. Taking down any aspect of the grid could cause serious disaster readiness delays, not to mention degraded military emergency action responses.

It seems the seriousness of these infrastructure vulnerabilities, particularly to a surprise EMP attack, is behind the decision to reactivate the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado Springs.

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One of my liberal friends called me this week to announce that the NRA was requiring convention-goers to their national gathering up in Tennessee to remove firing pins from their guns before entering the show.

I had to just sit back and listen – since once wound up on gun control, I can invest hours I don’t have in listening to anti-gun propaganda.

But here we have it this morning, over at the Bearing Arms dot com site that no, the only firing pin removal that would be required would be from display guns.  You know, the kind anyone wandering the show could pick up, touch, test the action, weight, balance, and such on.

Otherwise, notes the article is it really big news that the N.R.A. expects its members to follow local laws – whatever those happen to be?

As a gun owner (and user) I have to point out that guns are – like any other tool invented by the crazy upright bipeds – useful for good, or evil.  It all depends whose hands the tool is in.  Criminals who use guns are no different, as I see it, than hackers who turn off traffic signals or mess with air traffic control.  Yet so far we don’t have to register mice and keyboards.

The problem here is, every year, seems, we get a wandering snake come around the house or shop.  Nothing 20-feet long like in Anaconda.  Just your common everyday copperhead, cotton mouth, or coral snake.  I know where the coral snake family lives and we have a deal:  I leave them alone and they leave me alone.

With the weather warm again, we are on the lookout for our first slithering visiting.  When they show up it will depend where they are and how I decide to remove them.  #4 bird shot from a 12-gauge  is a nice stand-off approach while the .22 with rat shot is good for closer –in work.  A Glock or Ruger with rat shot is a kind of middle ground.

Last year, in honor of my liberal friend, when the first snake of the season showed up, I tried an experiment.  I was bound and determines to try liberalism.  So I  began by trying to talk the snake to death.

I’ll told him about Newton, MA, the Boston Bomber, and since he didn’t seem to trust me, I reviewed most of the major gun crimes cases of the past 100-years.

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Yes – NBC as in nuclear, chemical, and biological. The HI is hunger immigration which we’ll come to presently.

Our thinking this week?  It’s time to get a lot more serious about our prepping, why we do it, and the “other agenda” that may be working.

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You may be wondering “How did you manage to blow the outlook for Monday so badly – usually Ure much closer to right?”

The answer is simple:  The markets have entered “Upside-Down” mode.

Here’s how it works:

In “right-side up” mode, the market would have looked at the trashy job numbers of last Friday when the market was closed.  The futures seemed to have it called right – down well over a hundred Dow points in the pre-open.

This would be a normal reaction to sucky data. 

When markets entered the “Upside-Down” mode, however, bad news becomes good news.

The market fears higher rates like some people worry about a heart attack.  What’s going on now is that the bad news is seen as running the Federal Reserve out of the rate-raising game.

This upside-down (bad news is actually good) would persist a while, too.  2,100-2,150 on the S&P is not out of the question. 

The risk of such insanity is also why I have made no secret of my love of cash – the third way – and in Depressions, in which –  as the history books teach us –  Cash is king.

Critical Fed Data Due

The one thing to be aware of in markets today is the release of the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Debt figures.  Called the “Consumer Credit Report” (because they’re on the receiving end of the debt – on this side of the table it’s the yoke of debt slavery) it looked like this going into today’s data due out at 3 PM Eastern:

There are two types of debt reported:  Revolving which is things like credit cards.  Non-revolving is the other and that includes things like student loans.

One of the real problems with the data is that it is aged well before release.  The numbers coming out today will reflect data for February and this is April, right?  So trying to get much more than a general sense of things is like trying to drive by looking in the rearview mirror with binoculars.

This data series, along with retail sales and consumer price data are conditions where “upside-down” market thinking could be a plus for bulls.

I forget where I read it, but the term “best dirty shirt in the laundry pile” certainly is a fair summary of how the US markets look compared to Europe and many other places.  Our Peoplenomics™ Trading Model has been consistently right through this market – proving my gut (although smaller from dieting – see Coping) is still not as good as my math.

Here Comes Paul

I think Rand Paul would make a dandy president.  He comes from good stock, my ultra liberal friends hate him, so he can’t be all bad.  And he’s trying to walk a fine line between Tea Party ideals and conservative GOP purse strings – not an easy hike at best.

The announcement will be coming up at Louisville.

Since we’re months away from football season, this morning would be a fine time to kick off the UrbanSurvival Fantasy Politicians League.

That’s because the American public is denied real choice because of the duopoly that the R’s and D’s have used to smother good ideas.

Hence, I think it would be dandy if voting laws could be changed so we could elect president and vice presidents from either party.

I think a Rand Paul/Elizabeth Warren ticket, for example, would make a lot of sense.  It would chill the reactionary right, be progressive on TP and conservative D issues, yet not wander off the board on the socialist path.  I believe the two personalities would keep each other in check, too.

The Wikipedia discussion of how the VP process worked early in the Nation’s history is worth review:

“Under the original terms of the Constitution, the electors of the Electoral College voted only for office of President rather than for both President and Vice President. Each elector was allowed to vote for two people for the top office. The person receiving the greatest number of votes (provided that such a number was a majority of electors) would be President, while the individual who received the next largest number of votes became Vice President. If no one received a majority of votes, then the House of Representatives would choose among the five candidates with the largest numbers of votes, with each state’s representatives together casting a single vote. In such a case, the person who received the highest number of votes but was not chosen President would become Vice President. In the case of a tie for second, then the Senate would choose the Vice President.^[28]

The original plan, however, did not foresee the development of political parties and their adversarial role in the government. For example, in the election of 1796, Federalist John Adams came in first, but because the Federalist electors had divided their second vote amongst several vice presidential candidates, Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson came second. Thus, the President and Vice President were from opposing parties. Predictably, Adams and Jefferson clashed over issues such as states’ rights and foreign policy.^[29]

The key part was the development of adversarial political “parties” which is really an American tragedy – it really spelled “The End” of more directly representative government – and the “forced consensus” that the TP still riles against today.

“A greater problem occurred in the election of 1800, in which the two participating parties each had a secondary candidate they intended to elect as Vice President, but the more popular Democratic-Republican party failed to execute that plan with their electoral votes. Under the system in place at the time (Article II, Section 1, Clause 3), the electors could not differentiate between their two candidates, so the plan had been for one elector to vote for Thomas Jefferson but not for Aaron Burr, thus putting Burr in second place.

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