It’s All About Prepping, Remember?

Does a MILLION thirsty people mean something to you?

Word from my consigliere up in Ohio just came in…will be hitting national media today:  A whole city – Toledo – is under a water bulletin:

Real LIVE test as to how long a major city can survive withOUT water to drink or cook with!!
Toledo Ohio overnight issued a DO NOT CONSUME WATER bulletin due to toxic algae bloom contaminating the water which it takes in from Lake Erie. 
At present about 1,000,000 people are affected in Toledo and the surrounding area and bottled water supplies have effectively run out in the metro area.
There IS a treatment for this toxin that can remove it at the water filtration plant, but it is expensive to install and operate (a few smaller places in Ohio have had to install this treatment ability due to recurring problems with their water supply … notably those around Grand Lake St. Mary’s in the western part of the state which now faces this issue yearly).  The problem is caused by farm fertilizer and animal waste run off which creates a nutrient rich environment for growing algae in the shallow warm waters of Lake Erie which then produces excretes a neurotoxin.  The summer Algae Blooms in Lake Erie have been growing steadily over the last decade and are now creating NO SWIM zones even in much of the middle of the lake (the neurotoxins can be absorbed through the skin).
Probably a LOT of problems are going to crop up later today if the tests show the water is still undrinkable. 
Water IS the LIFEBLOOD of any city …

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Ebola Preps and an Electronics Class

This morning’s adventure – after the latest on Ebola prepping and my, what an odd coincidence –  involves a trip to the electronics bench for some on-the-job-training (in the wake of EMP) so you may be able to get a critical piece of equipment going again by being able to repair its power supply.

This is NOT a complete course on electronics, but by the time we’re done with this morning’s discussion, you should have enough knowledge to put together a “basic prepping” electronics kit that MAY be able to solve some of the problems that we’d expect on the “back-side” of Dark.

And what does this have to do with the economy and markets?  People did not always live on a diet of paper and plastic.  In fact, most of human history features people actually DOING stuff, rather thank getting paid for “thinking” which usually comes down to scheming.

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Markets Fall, World Fails to End, Jobs Data Out

Let me see, where were we?   Ah, yes, I was explaining how a nation’s I Q could be inferred by looking at how markets perform.  And since the US decline was greater than others we reviewed on Thursday morning, we’ll have to take this as a sure-fire indicator that all this “least common denominator crap” on television and other media is certainly paying off for the PTB.

The biggest loser though, was Argentina.  Their Merval  index sank 8.4% Thursday and the great I Q lesson here is that you can’t stiff the hedgies and not expect some payback.  The flip side, though, is that the Merval was up almost 7% the day before, so in a lot of ways it’s like going to Vegas:  Some days you win big, other times you lose big.

Asia dropped somewhat overnight.  Not that they think the world is ending, but if the US gets the flu, China and Japan will at least get the sniffles.  0.9% and 0.63% respectively ands that’s a rational response when the Worlds Biggest Consumer drops 2%, which we did.

In Europe this morning this morning, the Brits were down a further 1.22%, Germany down 1.71% an d the French down 0.92% when I looked earlier. 

Is it ALL the fault of Argentina?  Of course not.  We live on a multivariate financial/drug planet.

Another factor, not to be missed, is that the Fed this week didn’t talk up the rate increase (likely in 2015) enough.  That’s something to consider deeply.

If the Fed signals that it will raise rates, it sets a market expectation that the recovery is healthy and demand is coming along much as would be expected in a recovery.  But if the Fed doesn’t at least talk a good line, the market people get all jittery-like and they start responding as though deflation is still here.

As to what an Elliott wave perspective reveals, my friend Robin Landry expects this to hold around/above 1,900 on the S&P, but he figures the real line in the sand is down around 1,740.  Once that is taken out, then yes, the world will be ending, the Crash of a Lifetime is likely on, and make room under the bed because I’ll be joining you.  But in the meantime…

A check of commodity prices (over here) suggests that they aren’t wrong in thinking that things could hold up another year…maybe…before Long Wave reality slaps us silly:  Crude oil is down almost $3-bucks (and 3%) in the past week.  And the majority of other commodities are down, too.

But if you look at a three-month chart of the CBOE10-year Treasury trade, you’ll see that the Treasury traders are not at all in a panic, and since the bond market is many times the size of equities, my outlook for a “turnaround Tuesday” next week seems just as reasonable now as it did yesterday.

Bonds rates are not collapsing,  the GDP is increasing at 4% (with the asterisk about who’s numbers you believe, of course) and that gets us to this morning’s employment report.

Gee, are we having fun now, or what?  (Nose plugs at the ready?)

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 209,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 6.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, manufacturing, retail trade, and construction.

| | | Changes to the Establishment Survey | | | | Effective with the release of July 2014 data in this news release, the | | establishment survey began implementing new sample units into production on | | a quarterly basis, replacing the practice of implementing new sample units | | annually. There was no change to the establishment survey sample design. | | More information about the quarterly sample implementation is available at | | www.bls.gov/ces/cesqsi.htm . | | | |

Household Survey Data Both the unemployment rate (6.2 percent) and the number of unemployed persons (9.7 million) changed little in July. Over the past 12 months, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed persons have declined by 1.1 percentage points and 1.7 million, respectively. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult women increased to 5.7 percent and the rate for blacks edged up to 11.4 percent in July, following declines for both groups in the prior month.

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Coping: Prepping for the Great Shut-In?

In Thursday’s column we began to roll around some of the issues that would likely accompany a Big Shut-In – which would be a justifiable public policy response to Ebola getting loose in the USA.

There was one error in the report pointed out by reader Elizabeth:

I visited the CDC site but couldn’t locate the ‘cleaning and sanitizing with bleach’ section.  Could you please post the link?  You referenced 2 links today but the actual links are missing.  Could you post both please?

My pal Gaye at www.backdoorsurvival.com adds this:

Regular unscented only. Plus, keep in mind that for disinfecting and sanitation purposes, bleach has a 1 year shelf life. Not some thing to mess with. – using old bleach that is.

She’s got an article coming up on the powder (used for chlorinating swimming pools) which is the same stuff but with a better shelf life, so watch her site for that…

It’s early (and the coffee is still spinning up) but here’s the one that matters most:

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/bleach.asp 

Second error:  Death count is 700 not 7000…stick around for a while, though.  It was raining zeros and we’ve had a drought of decimal points this week.

Another reader (Eli) sent along a video link which calls into question the pabulum which is being inserted in virtually all mainstream media accounts that Ebola can not be spread by airborne means.

After you watch this video (and so some reading) I’m sure you’ll be loading up on jugs of bleach…

A reader in Israel sent us this:

Between wars I try to read your column.

Your Ebola prepping may be just in time: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/american-ebola-virus-patient-u-s-article-1.1887776

If you need a bunker, you can have mine for free. Zeus is also welcome.

Keep safe.

That could be a tall order.  The headline on that last link announces that “Emory University Hospital in Georgia is expected to receive Ebola virus patient as American aid workers are evacuated from Liberia…”

Opening borders is turning into a whole manipulation festival at many levels, isn’t it?  I can hear the unstated ads now:  “Open borders, it’s not just for Hondurans anymore…” 

Say, anyone besides me wonder if Ebola is covered by Obamacare?  Just wondering…

All of which gets us back to looking over our personal prepping plans around the ranch and wondering how the checklist is holding up.  You may not be able to trust the Nanny State, but you should be able to trust yourself.  (Unless my friend Jas is right and America really has been bred down to the land of dopes and fools, and I grudgingly admit he’s got some evidence to that effect…)

Our “Seven Major Systems” of life approach is useful and you’re welcome to borrow it for assessing your own readiness for the possibility that a Great Shut-In could be coming down the road…Just tell all your friends to be sure and visit UrbanSurvival.com 30-times a day so I can become fabulously wealthy as the world ends, lol…

Food

Starting yesterday, you look at your food and water situation:  Sure the water from the public source SHOULD stay on, but do you have several weeks of water in containers just in case?  1.5 gallons of drinking water per day per person minimum. 

And do you have 90-days of food for you and your loved ones on hand?  Any way to cook all those noodles and such?  Around here we’ve got acres of trees dropping deadfall all year, but if you have a rocket stove in the city where are you going to get fuel?  And just how many days worth of meals can you get from a BBQ?

Frozen foods are nice, but what’s the plan when the power goes off and the stuff begins to spoil?

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Standby for a Phony Crisis

Brought to you by hedge funds that are pissed that Argentina (as everyone knew they would) is planning to stiff some hedgies.

“Oh, it’s going to be terrible…woe is with us…this is the beginning of the end!!!”

I can hear the hand-wringers already – which is odd when I think about it, because the talking heads of the market haven’t been spun up for the day yet, but that’s besides the point.

One of the genuinely rational reports out there, calling it like it is, is being served up this morning from Heidi Moore’s pen over at the UK’s Guardian website.

Headlined as…

“It’s the end of Argentina as we know it, and the world economy will be just fine

An entire country defaulting on its debt? After a fight with US hedge-funders? This is the stupidest ‘nuclear option’ yet”

It’s a breath of fresh air to see that there may actually be more than one rational observer of the world’s careening financial misbehavior, driven by too much paper and too little common sense.

How’s the Hoax du Hedgies going?  A review of world markets this morning should be saved as an indicator of the possible economic intelligence of the various markets around the world.  The smart people have markets going UP while the stupid people find their markets going DOWN is one way to look at it.

Here’s the rundown as of press time:

China is smart.  The Hang Seng was up 24 points.  I guess you don’t get to be a 5,000 year old civilization (which invented paper, remember?) by believing that paper really is value.  No, they’ve figured out People and Resource are the value.  And lately, prison camps and cheap labor, but they aren’t planning on the world ending, just yet, it seems.

Japan was down 25 points overnight.  That’s hardly anything…and this from a country which has 40-years or more of Fukushima clean-up still to come.  Why, you’d think they’d be the easiest to spook, but no.

Europe (UreUp) is a different deal.  Krautenlanden was down more than 1% when I looked.  But there’s a reason built into the psychology of the Germans that can be traced back to the Brothers Grimm.

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Coping: Prepping for Ebola

Some of what follows is fictional, but then again, oftentimes there’s just “too convenient” a fit between the observed facts of the world and a very conspiratorial viewpoint.

I mentioned this to Peoplenomics.com subscribers earlier and with the withdrawal of Peace Corps workers from the hot zone overnight, it’s time to start seriously contemplating prepping just in case the ‘worst outcome” happens and Ebola gets a foothold inside the USA.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell:

  • Nearly 7,000 people are dead from the present outbreak so far.
  • Quietly, since April, Department of Defense has been beefing up biohazard equipment levels domestically.  And these are now in place in all 50 states.
  • Chatter on internet discussion groups (example) are way up and a lot of discussion floats around Executive Orders
  • And yes, CDC has a page up that explains the legality of strict population controls:

“The federal government derives its authority for isolation and quarantine from the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.  Under section 361 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S. Code § 264), the U.S.

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Electronic Prepping: What You Didn’t Know…

Since I wrote the book “Broken Web: The coming collapse of the Internet” (yes, you can get it on Amazon) I’ve been watching many of the things forecast in that book come into view and become part of the American consciousness.

This morning we present the first of two reports this week, one of which is a free piece of software that might increase your personal privacy and which may help insulate you from coming internet attacks on American infrastructure.

And then, this coming weekend, we hope to have ready an interview with Manfred Rolle, who’s one of the leading internet security gurus (and architect with chief software designer Jens) of the very successful Maxa Cookie Manager. 

Sure, canning, heritage seeds, water purification and 1,800 FPM rounds may seem like great prepping items, but we covered most of that for subscribers in back issues over the past 13-years of Peoplenomics issues in the subscriber archive.  Things like raising goats and solar power system design?  Sure, old hat.  MRE storage temps?  I’m sure we’ve covered it somewhere…

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Housing Data: Up But Turning?

One of the key press releases every month in the S&P Case-Shiller Home prices report, just out this morning:

Data through May 2014, released today by S&P Dow Jones Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show the Composite Indices increased at a slower pace. The 10-City Composite gained 9.4% year-over-year and the 20-City 9.3%, down significantly from the +10.9% and +10.8% returns reported last month. All cities with the exception of Charlotte and Tampa saw their annual rates decelerate.

In the month of May, the 10- and 20-City Composites posted gains of 1.1%. For the second consecutive month, all twenty cities posted increases. Charlotte posted its highest monthly increase of 1.4% in over a year. Tampa gained 1.8%, followed by San Francisco at +1.6% and Chicago at +1.5%. Phoenix and San Diego were the only cities to gain less than one percent with increases of 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively.

“Home prices rose at their slowest pace since February of last year,” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “The 10- and 20-City Composites posted just over 9%, well below expectations.

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Schizophrenic Tuesday

“Say what?”

Oh, just took my “clever writing” pill this morning and that means we will have a split personality report.  Part of it will be deadly serious when the housing report comes out from Case/Shiller/S&P here, so do check back.

Meantime, most of the activity both in markets and on the net seems to be an exciting game of “Which straw will break the camel’s back?”

While “the camel” put on 22 points and was up another 33 when I looked earlier, it’s really the balance of the week that will tell the tale.

In a few minutes, we get the housing data, later this morning consumer confidence, then advance GDP tomorrow along with a Fed Rate decision.  But the capper will be the unemployment rate on Friday and we’ll do our usual hatchet job on that Friday morning.  So do put it on your calendars and bring some QuikClot…

Not for me, of course, but for the markets which could get hammered, depending on how much the caterwauling bond holders can whip up the fear-levels because of Argentina’s which, as of this morning, is a fine dance that’s still pending.

War Dimes

Yes, we could be disparaging “war crimes” in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, but it’s all about the usual suspects:  Power and Money.

While Israel steps up attacks against Hamas, which has a habit of moving arms into schools and residential areas and then telling its residents they can’t flee when the obvious happens, the real problem for the Washington Cartel is what to do about it?

Washington’s caught in a terrible economic conundrum:  Israel gets $3.1-billion of year of foreign aid, so you’re personal out of pocket contribution is only something like $10 per year per capita.

There are some folks on the net who get really worked up over this, yet I’d ask every one of them if they voted in the last primary and to show the check stubs for their contributions to campaigns offering an alternative.

Besides, Afghanistan was costing us $41+ per capita and we didn’t even get a cut of the illegal poppy crop cash.  What’cha gonna do?

The problem is the whole Middle East is that our nation is the largest death merchant in the world with a 36.6% market share.

China, who’s our buddy-buddy pals since they buy our Treasury paper does 10.8% of the world arms exporting.

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Coping: Tuesday at the WoWW

Ah…World of Woo-Woo time, is it?

A recurrent theme around here lately in our research are all those people who we thought were dead, but really are not.

One that plagues me is Fidel Castro…I could have sworn on a stack that he was worm food, but no, still alive and kicking.  I’ll be damned.  (Six conspiracy sites have reported Putin met with a zombie, though…)

And yes, I know it was a distinct event from Hugo Chavez…

Another person that many think is “a-goner” is Jane Goodall…British primate scientist.  Reader Donald admits to being plagued by this one:

I’ve been meaning to share this with someone. Having seen emails from your readers on your website that sound like my experience, I thought I’d sent it to you. So here it is.

I believe the past has changed thus changing the present at least from my perspective. Why? I do not know. Keep in mind that this is not a dream. It’s real life.

First, I want you to know that I’m well aware of all the stories and theories about parallel universes (or multiverse) and multiple timelines and everything strange in this universe. I’m not saying I know everything J about this area of human knowledge.

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Monday in the Financial Casino / The Off-Planet View

“New shooters….coming out!”

Yes sir, it sure feels like a casino…all kinds of craps… but I feel strangely light-headed about it.  Maybe Doc Thompson can get me some pills, or something, for it.  Ah…there’s the rub…Which pill? 

Well that depends on which casino game we’re talking about.

One pill might be for infection – this would be for the systemic infection that could flare up with this week’s Argentina financial disaster waiting to flare up.  As you’ll remember, the IMF et al want Argentina to pay up and Argentina, which turned stiffing the international banksters into high art back in 2002, wasn’t it?, is set to do it again.

So we might want to start a prophylactic course of Ciproflaxin, for that one.  Bondholders are such whiners…terminal wallet disease carriers, too.

Next, we might want to grab a couple of aspirin for the Federal Reserve meeting this week which is widely expected to reduce the quantitative pleasing by $10-billion per month, or so.

Then tomorrow morning, we’ll have our monthly “split personality” report in order to update you on the Standard and Poorhousing picture.  Remember, the housing recovery has been dramatic overs the past couple of years, just as any pulse is considered a zillion percent improvement from dead/flat-lined, so too, housing isn’t exactly pumping and jumping.  Along with the rest of the green shoots, recovery, or whatever you want to call it, come to think of it.

So for that, maybe I need a mood stabilizer like Abilify or Seoquel, you think?  That might help with Consumer CONfidence data, due out tomorrow morning, as well. Focus on the positive, we’ll mindlessly mantra-fy…

Then to cap off the week, we will have the latest unemployment data to digest with the hash-browns Friday morning.  Depending on how the numbers roll, the range of expectations is somewhere the  Devil’s Quadrangle between blow, nitrous oxide, Ambien  and Oxy.

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Coping: With the Making of “Personal Magic”

I’ve told you many times about Chris Tyreman and the Jewish studies group up on the Prairie of Canada that’s recently come out with a couple of books (100 Questions You Never Thought to Ask and Didn’t Want the Answers To…. and The Destruction of Sabbath: Tracking the History of Deception).  They’ve found a hidden “error correcting code” in ancient Hebrew and they’re finding out amazing mis-translations of religious texts.    That’s not our topic here, though.

But besides sharing a driving fascination with figuring out the Big Problem (how humans have been led astray/manipulated and so forth), I don’t think I’ve mentioned that they, too, have significant skills when it comes to “personal magic” of the kind that lets some people turn their homes into real marvelous “life spaces” while other people, putting no more thought into their surroundings than a cheap framed post to cover up a wall, live in places that are really “dead.”

Elaine’s expression of it is “transporting.”

She’s working on what used to be a simple cobbled-on covered porch with a tin roof on the side of our modular/mobile/trailer.  And it’s turning into a morning “coffee room”  because, along about sunrise, we can be out there with the coffee as the local wildlife goes about the front yard doing its thing.

Each room in the house has a “vibe” to it…and when done (that’s a different problem), the idea is that the house will be similar to walking onto a Hollywood movie set.

Chris (and company) have been doing the same thing (but different, lol) and he sent along some examples:

Just looking through the house and realizing how many things we “magicked” for cheap.  Here are a few things.  My house is exactly the same, no additions.  The new shot is today’s  Even the siding is the same stuff. Took it off and cut it in half length wise and put it back on (saved $6000).  Made the stone from cement and put it on, and the paint was mistints mixed together at $5.00 a gallon.

[George sourcing note:  Some of the most useful places to find home redocorating/value-adding products include the cancelled orders bin and the mis-mixed paints at Lowes and Home Depot.

Other places to find real bargains are Craigslist and eBay.  On Craigslist, be sure and look under the heading “material” and furniture, depending on what you feel like changing in your personal space.  And local garage sales can turn up all kinds of things that can be “magicked” into new amazing new purposes. 

Back to Chris’ comments and a look at Michelle’s house…)

Same for Michelle’s house. We made the shutters for $20.00.

The cabinet was a $50 POS phony oak vinyl.  Used exterior vinyl paint and a stencil.  Found the same look at a store for $500.

My kitchen cupboards are all original, just cheap moldings and paint.  

The new ones are cheap 3/4 inch plywood.  Tops are granite squares at $3 a piece.  The real expense was the tile saw which was $120.

(Another George note: A lot of people would like to have a hidden door, secret passage, and so forth.  But very few people actually DO something about it.  I don’t know where it came from, but I seem to remember an old television show from the black and white era that featured a home owned by a “Mr. Applegate” – and it had hidden doors and secret this and that’s. 

We’ve got one such non-apparent room entrance and here’s what Chris’ looks like…)

The door is chip board and plywood, painted like wood and then clear coated. Then some hinges and and a wheel it rolls on.  The carved wood I did with a dremel tool.

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Those Who Forget History…

….are damned to repeat it.

So this morning, we walk into what the librarians of this world used to call “the stacks” as we try to size up some correlative data about the pre-Depression run-up to the all time (until then) Great Depression.

Our quest this morning is two-fold:  First to see what some of the missing data might tell us, and secondly to see how the “humans in denial” phenomena works.

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