T Minus 2: Holiday Rally Time?

Durable Goods and a PMI report tomorrow? Spiced with the latest crypto religion revival talk?   Like Hecklefish says, “Oh boy…”

Our consigliere was just south of Little Rock (*Arkysaw) leaving us just time to make the last-minute food and booze run.  Turkey will be tomorrow night and prime rib Thursday.  If you’re in the neighborhood…keep driving.

For today’s market outlook (I’ll spare you the math) there is still a case for a one-last rally before things collapse.  Which may not arrive till early December, time being the hardest part of futuring.

From an Elliott wave standpoint, we look something like this:

As you should be able to figure, we count us as being in the new Big (yellow if it were shown) 3 Down.  Of which, 3 (1) down is done and the market is quibbling over whether 3 (2) should end as an a-b-c – which is already “in the can” OR whether the past few days of decline is a “d” wave meaning there’s an “e” wave in the wings which will turn:

  • 3 (2) into a five wave advance of a-b-c-d-e
  • Which will (or COULD) go all the way up to the declining trend channel from the all-time highs which were set Nov, 8 of 2021.
  • Crash then in December….

Which is also when Bitcoin hit it’s all time high.

Cryptoic?

Holiday cheer aside, I read a report the other day that 100 percent of people who invested in Bitcoin have lost money.  This is true every time new post-high lower lows are carved out.

Over in the virtual wing of the financial asylum, the inmates are talking nonsense again:  While not quite as lurid as their Hunter Biden (and Payday President) exposés, the NY Post lays out the sins of FTX in Polyamory & pills: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX party pad (nypost.com).  While otherwise, Bankman-Fried’s FTX, parents bought Bahamas property worth $121 mln. Since there’s a sucker born every minute, why not?

This whole thing (a debacle to come) was a Ponzi Scheme from the get-go.  We even went so far as to recommend you NOT get a digital wallet (this was before the self-perjury checkmark on the IRS 1040) has screwed nearly everyone it has touched, seems like: ‘I want my money back’: Emails from desperate Australian FTX customers detailed in court documents.

Two things surprise us great in this digital tulip wilt (predictable since Day ONen):  First, BTC is still trading at $15,728.  Elon Musk, we hope, won’t put on his King Canute hat and talk up this turd of a financial fantasy, anymore.

Still no one in jail, we know of.  Bullshit protection of the rich and connected.

Second is this follow-on story (next!) has taken so long to appear:  Another major cryptocurrency exchange could be poised to go bankrupt | TVP World.  We would have expected a whole bevvy of digital dominoes to be falling by now. Jails getting overcrowded.

Yes, that’s right: Bitcoin and Ethereum slide with crypto exchange Genesis on the brink (proactiveinvestors.co.uk). Our BTC target is still zero in the long haul. With a pause around $7K to $10K on the way.

However, I give my fellow humans too much credit thinking them smarter than such numbers insist.

News Headline Disposerator

(With a word-play apology to In-Sink-Erator…)

Nuke plant shell hype continues.  Assuming you know Russia controls the nuke plant in play and the odds of Russia shelling its own troops is about zero, you might want to take this report – ‘Close Call’ in Shelling Near Nuclear Reactor on Ukraine’s Frontline | NTD – with a grain of …no, make that a whole 50-pound salt lick.

Meanwhile (with Ukraine shelling) Russia calls on Ukraine to pull out heavy weapons from Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Crooked communist government wannabes all work the same.  While speeding up the arms movements to UKR, what is the Wart Party doing back home?  Joe Biden pushes gun control after Colorado Springs shooting – TheBlaze.  OK for Ukrainians to be armed but not Americans?  Ukrainians have a defensible border, too.  Kinda unlike, oh, Texas…

Speaking of communist governments... FBI: We Are Concerned About TikTok’s Presence In The US.  Better late than never?  Or is this strong arming some social support for the dumbs in 2024?

Side of frosted Lefties with that?  Abbott declares fictional “invasion” as Trump heaps praise on border cruelty – Liberation News

The American War Party response?  The US is accelerating its weapons acquisition process to replenish the stockpile.

Hungary for money?  Friends? Low rad counts?  EU member will defend nuclear cooperation with Russia, foreign minister tells RT.

Yes, it was a bioweapon, but why keep mandating?  22 states ask feds to repeal COVID vaccine mandate for health care workers | Fox News.  the short answer is $.  Lots and lots of $$$$$$$$ with no liability.

From Kamala’s lips:  Kamala Harris says U.S. will defend Philippines in South China Sea (nbcnews.com). Translation:  The U.S.A. is not a Manila folder…  *(Sorry, the line was just sitting there, and something came over me!)  We do continue to pray for Joe Biden’s health.

WGAS?  (Who gives a shit?)  Ivanka Trump Posts Egypt Photos After Withdrawing From Politics.  Done with politics?  Maybe. But, certainly not done with fame or money, huh?

Has someone been hitting the nitrous?  NASA ‘giddy’ over amazing moon views from Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft | Space. Since there’s nothing there, WHO CARES?  The commute time to the Moon sucks and the shipping rates are absurd.  Will this become the next Ponzi?  Moon landowners?  Why not?

Around the Ranch: Holiday Fire Prevention

Over in the Comments section, reader Elanor made an insightful post:

“I live in a city. We have had an unusual amount of house fires and abandoned building fires in town, as well as grass fires on the outskirts of town. How do you prepare for fires surrounded by trees?”

Being of a “fire department family” the answer was long but useful:

“ON the prepping for fires…

Son G2 will be done with his current deployment to (insert name of ultra big computer company noted for its cpu OS) site around year end. Then comes a bucket truck rental and we will be trimming down the (huge) elm (or larch or whatevers) between the house and shop.

Main thing: No overhang of buildings.

Second, my consigliere and I will be “tagging” all the pines within 150 feet of the house this week.  Because pine trees have so much pitch that they tend to “explode off” pieces of bark, trunks and branches in forest fire conditions.

You want to make sure that if ANY tree falls in a fire, there will still be a “lane” – 25+ feet all the way around your home. (Go ahead, make lots of firewood!).  Now you’re down to exposure fires if you can keep the lane “wet lined.”

Now on the prevention side indoors: Find a local electrician or handyman to go through your entire home electrical system. When they do so, have them tighten EVERY electrical connection in the house.  Don’t tackle this unless you are 100 percent certain how to do it and pull power completely ALWAYS.

What most people don’t understand is that copper is annealed. And this means that it continues to “flow” – like a supercooled solid.

What this results in over time, and I’ve seen it firsthand in radio gear and living aboard (and working on) marine electrics plus in our own home-remodels and expansions) is that after 10 to 20 years, or so, you can get an eighth or a quarter turn on almost every electrical connection in your home.

Now, imagine – just for instance – that people long ago actually did REAL home maintenance. This electrical maintenance ritual is something the “old timers” used to do instinctively.

Every 10-15 years – pull every outlet (POWER OFF!) and retighten and while you’re at it, confirm the polarity is right – and properly grounded!

A lot of people have overlooked these items because we don’t have a company around marketing that “simple but useful safety maintenance.” Have a business plan for something I call “HomeSafe.” Never going to be a company on the NYSE (but I have it as a long-term idea for G2 if he ever gets bored with emergency/industrial medicine (not likely).

This is well within the skills of many homeowners.

You NEVER want to see an electrical spark-sourced “wall fire” – which I experienced out here in the woods.

Killed power, knocked it down, but in the “what went wrong” research, I was putting a real 20-amp load (MIG welder) on a cheap (15 Amp) outlet – with predictable results.  Genuine firefighting stress – peripheral vision darkening as the adrenaline hits roll through, and all that.

Only takes one or two of these events to see where the problems are.

Now toss in an imperfect connection and then add a dash of corrosion over the years…an increase in house fires over the holidays happens because?  HEATERS come on this time of year and now you’re into overload country.

GREAT Question!

Write if you get the wishbone and prep for the gravy swim.

George@Ure.net

40 thoughts on “T Minus 2: Holiday Rally Time?”

  1. The loosening of connections is why many insurance companies do not want to pay out on fires caused by solar gear in the house. The highly stranded 8 and 10 gauge wires are generally held tight with compression screws, I have seen them loosen up in only a month. Retightening is a constant chore now.

  2. George-
    VERY good advice regarding tightening the electrical connection screws! You are a treasure trove of good, not-often-talked about yet practical life advice.

    I have a Master Electrician brother who owns a large commercial contracting company and my other brother is a retired Building inspector. I don’t ever recall getting this advice from them, but their baby brother has first-hand experience with it. To wit: I have done ALL of my own electrical work (with some long-distance guidance from said brothers) on my homes and outbuildings going back 40 years, including installing a new 200 amp service in my current home in 2001. Along about 2017-18 I noticed the lights doing a faint, occasional blinking. This went on for months while a replaced a switch or two and tightened or replace aging incandescent bulbs with LED’s. Still the faint blinking. It gradually occurred to me that the copper may be crushing over time, and screws may be loosening as the loads fluctuated over the years. So I went into the main panel, and sure enough I was able to tighten the lug screws for the incoming stranded copper lines fully ONE-QUARTER TURN each! And I KNOW that I tightened them as much as possible when I installed it! (Yeah, I’m that kind of guy.) Voila! No more blinking lights!
    Rick A.

    • I’ve been there and done that! One of the most insidious failures is when the neutral lug gets oxidized or loose – including the neutral connection at the weatherhead.

      If you put a voltmeter on a phase and load the other one hard(with electric heaters, toaster, microwave, etc), there should be no fluctuation in the voltage. If you do the same for the opposite phase – same thing. If that neutral lug is loose, you can get massive voltage fluctuations on both phases depending on load. Obviously, this isn’t good for the health of the house or its occupants.

      Fixing this involves live high amp unfused lines, so be sure you know what you’re doing. Testing can be done by anyone that’s reasonably competent in electricity.

  3. Crypto is just another money tool and is a reflection of our current system. What happened with FTX and crypto could/will happen with the legacy markets. All of these exchanges in various financial instruments are derivatives of computer driven algorithms where the centralized fed computer has way too much productivity and control. When the power to that one centralized computer fails it will not be too big to fail and your farm and others like it will still function and hold value.
    You can’t eat an algo or many or the current money constructs unless you trade for it. We are at the point where the magnetic field is weakening and won’t hold together so when technology fails we get to experience the collective cycle of a reset that happens when we reach the cycle shift called reset, reboot, cleansing, magnetic field failure, end of an age…

  4. Hi George et al;
    How about push in connections on electrical outlets and switches? As I replace/remodel/add outlets in my house I do screw tighten the solid copper wires on new outlets and run a piece of electrical tape around the whole outlet. But I do find almost all of the original electrical work is push in.

    • I was about to comment on exactly that! The contact area on push-in is minimal so they’ll heat under load. I generally pull the outlet and wire pigtails to a new outlet using the side screws. The electrical tape is a good safety – especially on metal boxes. If you find aluminum wire along the way, there are replacement connectors and noalox to mitigate this to a degree. Of course, if you were George, you’d probably replace the wire back to the panel. That’s the better fix, but many can’t afford to do that quickly – especially at holiday time.

    • Yepperz…

      IMO the electrical tape is a waste, because it makes everything gummy, and wires properly placed in a box will never need the extra insulation (if you feel strongly that you need something like this, use Plasti-Dip, liquid tape, or silicone. At least these can be peeled…)

      Lose the push-in connections ASAP. Screw or crimp everything…

  5. Being a moon landowner is already a thing. My dad picked up a deed to moon property years ago- just waiting on ticket prices to come down :)

    • I remember many moons ago when some cereal company (Quaker, Nabisco?) was offering a square foot of land in Alaska, complete with deed. I suppose you could do a one-pole house, but you’d be in the neighbor’s air space.

      • Got you all beat. I’ve got a claim on 10 square Km of Mars… at the runoff channel at the base of Mt Olympus. I call it ‘Olympus Wells’. If there is water anywhere, it might be there.

  6. “The American War Party response? The US is accelerating its weapons acquisition process to replenish the stockpile.”

    the Scary part of that story is… It could also be interpreted as saying.. USA must accelerate its weapons acquisition process to replenish our receding stockpile due to the Ukraine war…
    NOW.. the really looks like the chess play poison pawn trap..with an open admission that we are depleting our ability to defend our country by depleting our own resources..

    • question is was it a planned destruction of our arsenal by the elite, or. just stupidity. I’d say it was the planned destruction of the west.

      • You might be right… especially since the donators wanted to let their refugees enter without any vetting process..even though they said that that was exactly how they would get their warriors in to give back a little of what we have been dishing out.. NOW.. if only ten percent are warriors.. that is one heck of an army.. if only one tenth of a percent .. it is still one heck of an army especially since our politicians pushed to defund our police protection in our most crime ridden neighborhoods..
        You may just be right on this.. only time will tell though..

  7. Some time back I did a little research on crypto exchanges, and did some digging into the individual consumer ratings I could find. The most common complaint I saw, almost universally, went something like this “I gave them my money, now my account balance is zero, and no one will answer emails or phone calls”. These consumer complaints numbered in the 1000’s. Eastern Pacific rim exchanges appeared to be the worst, but I saw these complaints about exchanges EVERYWHERE. I came to the conclusion that the crypto industry was nothing but a fraud. FTX is just the tip of the iceberg. If you can recover funds, you might want to consider doing that while you can.

    • ???? do they even know where it goes to or who has it..
      I was always under the impression that crypto was Dark Money designed to hide transactions on the dark web..
      people in it that I always believed don’t want you to know what their dealings are or where your money has gone or done..

  8. Gift idea for the scientist in you. I did buy the first kit but my house is not clean and I had containerization so gave up.

    40% off everything.

    The Odin

    At The ODIN, we believe the future is going to be dominated by genetic engineering and consumer genetic design will be a big part of that. We are making that happen by creating kits and tools that allow anyone to make unique and usable organisms at home or in a lab or anywhere.

    https://www.the-odin.com/

  9. I could pass by with a flock of bottled wild turkey’s. 3/4 ton truck full.
    But be warned, a bad case of the behavioral gobbles are not far behind. To settle the wild turkey’s down add some southern comfort to mitigate the ill effects. I always found it easier to buy the turkey in a bottle. All that muss and fuss, hours in the oven, then the cleanup. Lots of trouble. This way just open bottle pour and give thanks! Gobble Gobble

  10. “Turkey will be tomorrow night and prime rib Thursday. If you’re in the neighborhood…keep driving.”

    Uggh! I’ll definitely be driving in the opposite direction! Too much prepared food scares me, and I’m vegetarian too. If I were to just smell that array, I’d gain 10 lbs! Regardless, have a happy Thanksgiving!

    I’m going outside to chop wood.

  11. Re: Kryptoic feat. Boadicea returns to haunt Londinium

    Folks,

    It may have been mentioned in this fine forum that a detailed presentation of the 9 member Monetary Policy Committee’s November 3rd decision is available to the public on the Bank of England website.

    The report offers a number of observations and projections not in keeping with typical political happy talk.
    – UK gdp will decline in both 2023 and 2024 recovering by 1% in 2025.
    – UK unemployment will continue rising into 2025.
    – 20% of UK mortgage are floating rate. 20% of fixed rate holders must renew in the coming year at an estimated average annual increase of £3000 each in interest.
    – real household income will fall in 2022 and 2023.
    – the current tight UK labour market is judged by the Bank as caused by the age 50-64 demographic. 20% of that age group who have dropped out of the labour market are unavailable to work because they are on healthcare waitlists “due to long-term sickness”.
    https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-report/2022/november-2022

    The voting choices of the MPC members on the 7-2 count for the 0.75% interest rate hike are buried in minutes of a Nov. 2nd meeting. One of the two dissenters at paragraph 56 had just been added to the MPC by the PM when he was finance minister. She holds a Phd from Wisconsin Madison and is ethnic Indian like the PM. She is allegedly both anti-Brexit and ranks the B of E 2% inflation target as less important than the affordability of living.
    https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-summary-and-minutes/2022/november-2022

    By the way, a family member has kindly passed along a book for me to read. “This Time is Different – eight centuries of financial folly” by Reinhart and Rogoff.

  12. @Eleanor

    “I live in a city. We have had an unusual amount of house fires and abandoned building fires in town, as well as grass fires on the outskirts of town. How do you prepare for fires surrounded by trees?”

    For house fires, read George’s primer. Abandoned building fires in 21st Century America come generally from one of four sources:

    1) Methheads – they love cooking their junk in abandoned houses.

    2) Insurance arson – when you can’t sell it, rent it, or afford to fix it, you burn it.

    3) Vandal arson – Got bored kids in your town? That sucks. Bored kids find things to do, to keep themselves busy.

    4) Vagrant arson – Some bums don’t like living under bridges. I’ve heard tell of more than one house which burned down because somebody built a campfire in the middle of the living room floor.

    Vagrants and bored kids also set fire to brush & trees, usually while learning how to make a campfire.

    The town nearest me had a vagrant or “hobo colony.” There must’ve been 200 of them and until the town started to go “Agenda 21” and clean up / clean out / chop down the random green-spaces, nobody knew they were there.

    Be aware of your neighborhood…

  13. “The American War Party response? The US is accelerating its weapons acquisition process to replenish the stockpile.”

    But not for us:

    “More War: US Will Try To Arm Taiwan QUICKLY

    The United States is going to attempt quickly arm Taiwan as the “China threat” grows. However, Joe Biden and XI Jinping recently met at the G20 summit, and both claim to be optimistic about US-China relations in the near future.

    https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/more-war-us-will-try-to-arm-taiwan-quickly

  14. “Yes, it was a bioweapon, but why keep mandating? 22 states ask feds to repeal COVID vaccine mandate for health care workers”

    Because it’s not about health or welfare, it’s about control…

  15. “WGAS? (Who gives a shit?) Ivanka Trump Posts Egypt Photos After Withdrawing From Politics.”

    This is actually significant. It means Daddy, if’fn he wins the Presidency, will not have to contend with the lovely Ivanka or her hubby, and their East Coast Liberal politics.

  16. lol lol have a second cousin that’s been drilling me..she was doing the genealogy and our family history smacked her.. so everyone said I had some of the old old family stories.. so she’s been really curious about the difference between the history books and the family stories.. I did learn something I wasn’t aware of.. I thought our most famous relative was 4 greats back..but he’s only 3 greats back.hated by the whole family till my mother’s generation.I didn’t tell her I had the masonic Templar order sword everyone wants that. the hat and cape I do have one of the berry baskets .. they are gone the cool sword I have ..supposedly he was high up but I don’t have a clue and don’t care..back then it was what people did to connect with community..socialize .. the berry basket story came from my great great uncle.. when William heard that Lewis wanted him to wander he made berry baskets..told everyone he wanted berry pie..they went out picking berries and he skipped out.. left them without any provisions.. back then that was life or death. then came back with a young Indian maiden lol they hated him..
    but they lived Daniel Boone..the story I heard was when he heard what William did he came to help the gather provisions for the winter..and teach hunting etc..
    true or not who knows its an old family story..

  17. When I bought the Volcano ranch here a few years back, the home inspector noted the outlet in the far bedroom was the wrong polarity. When I took over the property, the first thing I did was replace every wall outlet in the place. Amazing how crusty they were… they had been spray painted into sometime past, and push-in wires rotating loosely. Contractor grade outlets were a buck each. Cheap insurance. In the process I found some brainiac had crossed the white and black feeds at the first outlet in the daisy chain that went down the whole side of the house thru three rooms. Crusty old wall outlets are the major source of electrical fires.

    When I decided to install the Solar PV system, a new meter system from the electric company was required, so the contractor had to install a new main breaker box for the house also. That part cost me out of pocket as a requirement for the solar lease system, but it was worth it. New tight wiring and new breakers. And the ham shack has it’s own #10 240vac line for the killer what? So despite being the eccentric mad scientist, I feel pretty confident I’m not going to have any electrical fires.

  18. that report you read about 100% of crypto investors losing money is false. i’m surprised that it didn’t smell fake to you. maybe you succumbed to confirmation bias fallacy. just two years ago btc was trading below where it is now. anyone who got in 2+ years ago still has gain. i know some people who have made a ton of money (house buying money) and who still hold some.
    https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/charts/total-bitcoins

    • Cryptos are like all pyramid schemes; the people who get in early, and go to cash early, sometimes make money. Crypto exchanges are running full-on Ponzi schemes. FTX is just one of many. If an exchange pockets your money, you have virtually no recourse.

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