Silicon Valley Bank.

This bank had $200 billion plus in deposits, mostly from companies.  It had companies that deposited $20 billion apiece.  Sooner of later any half way competent company can find far more profitable uses for $20 billion, more profitable than leaving it in the bank.  When such a company withdraws $20 billion to do something it’s gonna shake the financial stability of the bank, even if it does have another $180 billion in the til. 

   I believe the thinking in bankers’ minds assumes that the depositors’ money is very small compared to the banks total assets.  And that they have a lot of depositors but they don’t all withdraw their deposits at the same time. 

  I’m thinking that Silicon Valley ignored all this and did not worry when big depositors made big withdrawals.

Biden promised to make all the depositors whole without laying the burden on taxpayers.  He is gonna have FDIC pay off everybody.  Of course FDIC gets its money from taxpayers, and $20 billion depositors take a lot of paying off.

 

The Federal Debt limit.

 We are approaching it.  It should hit sometime in September.  Last time, maybe ten years ago, the newsies cried and wailed that the US was going to default on its debts.  Not true. Never happened.  The Federal government collects enough taxes to pay about 65% of its debts.  The other 35% is paid be selling treasury bills (soundest investment on the planet). Last time my mail got delivered (the post office is nearly independent these days.  They don’t do checks for Social Security any more, the computers do electronic funds transfer right into my checking account.   I wasn’t due an income tax refund, so shutting down the IRS didn’t bother me.

   They did furlough a lot of federal bureaucrats.  Tough on them but my sympathy for bureaucrats is limited.   Plus as I remember they all got their jobs back with back pay. 

   So the newsies, even the Fox newsies, are wailing on the air that we are going to default on our debts.  Did not happen last time.  The Party of More Free Stuff (Democrats) has proposed trillions of dollars of new pork spending.  If the Republicans have the stones they should tell the Democrats, we won’t raise the debt ceiling just to pay for their pork.

Let’s make the rails safer.

Norfolk Southern has done two massive train wrecks inside of a week.  There is the East Palestine wreck and now a second wreck not far away from the East Palestine wreck.  Most of the time derailments leading to train wrecks are caused be faulty track.  Around here main line track at White River Junction is so old that I can pick spikes out of the ties with my fingers.  They run AMTRAK passenger trains over that bit of totally worn out track.  I’ll give the railroad this; they limit the speed of the passenger train to 30 mph over this bit of dead track.

   What we need is a public written document describing what properly maintained track is and how to inspect it.  Best issued by a private railroad association, not a government bureau.

   After a train wreck the railroad’s insurance company should inspect the track.  If the track fails to meet documented quality, the insurance company should refuse to pay off to the railroad.  For backup, if trackside land owners, local governments or businesses feel the railroad is running unsafely they can inspect the track themselves and sue the railroad if they find it running on dangerous track.

    The East Palestine train wreck is hard to explain.  The hotbox caused the truck to burst into flames 6 to 8 feet high.  There is a bit of video tape that shows this.  Why the train crew failed to stop the train after seeing the flames is strange, and no newsie has been intelligent enough to ask Norfolk Southern about it.  Hotboxes have been a hazard to railroading since its beginning two hundred years ago.   With 200 years of experience to guide them train crews ought to know to stop the train and cut the hotbox car out onto a siding and leave it there.

China is out to replace the United States as most important world power

I do not approve.  Here of some things that we should do to slow China down.

We ought to pass a tariff of 10% or maybe more on all Chinese goods.  That will cost the Chinese some business. The president can do this.  US tariffs are set by executive order of the president.

We should forbid US banks and other financial companies from loaning money to Chinese companies.  If a Chinese company needs to borrow money, it should borrow from places in China.  I believe this will require legislation in Congress.

 We ought to make a list of strategic items that US companies may not sell to China.  Semiconductors, small arms, ammunition, crude oil and refined fuels such as gasoline and diesel.  Coal, heavy weapons and their ammunition.  Aircraft.  A commission could come up with a more comprehensive list.  This ought to require legislation in Congress, but similar things have been done throughout the cold war on authority that I don’t understand.

US college education falls into two classes.  Four years of American college education is a hoot.  All of us who did college look back fondly on our college years.  Chinese students who graduate from an American college take back good memories of their time in America and will make it easier for us to get alone with China in the future.  Chinese students who are just out of high school (18 years old), unmarried, paying full list price, we ought to welcome.  Older students, who might be applying to US colleges to learn up-to-date US technology or snoop classified research, ought to be subject to more stringent checks.

Marking your product “Made in America” increases the sale of the product.  We ought to have an organization the keeps track of the “Made in America” mark and require that only 10 or 15 % of the product come from China, the bulk of the product should be from the US or friendly countries.  This might also require legislation from Congress to achieve. 

We ought to ban Tik-Tok and the like.

 

 

Chevy Trax

I bought one. It is Chevy’s smallest SUV.  There is a bigger one with an instantly forgettable name, and then the big iron, Suburban.  I am single, children are grown and the Trax is big enough for me.  It comes with a four cylinder turbo charged engine with plenty of power for an SUV.  It is not a sports car, and I didn’t buy it as such.  I was more interested in the all wheel drive that gets it into (and out of) my brother’s unplowed driveway. 

    Good features.  The door handles are big enough to get my fingers wearing gloves all around them to tug open a slightly frozen door.  Windshield is good and big.  It comes with a radio dongle instead of a key.  If you have the dongle in your pocket the car will start and run. No dongle, no go.  The rear seats fold down giving more cargo space to the rear luggage compartment.

   Bed features.  Every thing is so complicated I cannot make the car do anything without holding the ¾ inch thick user manual in my hand.  I had to use the manual just to put gas into it. I haven’t found the trip odometer, or the water temperature gage.   The manual says the car lacks an oil pressure gage.  The rear window is not big enough and rear vision is limited on the sides.  The stylists were from the “black” school.  The instrument panel is black, the buttons on the panel are matching black, the floor mats and the whole interior are black.  The dome light fails to come on when I open a door.

You should buy a radial arm saw.

Reason?  They are very cheap and plentiful on eBay. 

In the old days, when I was a kid, most fathers had a shop, somewhere, the basement, the garage, and other places.  In those days, before chop saws, the shops had either a table saw or a radial arm saw (RAS).  The benefit of the RAS was it could be pushed up against a wall of the shop and work just fine.  Table saws, if they were to cut long stock, needed to be in the middle of the shop with clearance all around.  Both RAS and table saw cut with a disc shaped blade with teeth on the edge turned by a motor bolted to the blade center.  

To trim a 9 foot 2by4 stud to length on a table saw you have to brace the long stud to the miter gage which is only 6 inches long.  It’s very easy to let the long stud slip a tiny bit, and the trim cut is now longer a good square cut, it becomes a little bit off, and the whole project does not fit together a well as you would like. 

   With a RAS, I locate a work bench, the same height as the RAS table right next to the RAS table.  I lay the long stud on the workbench and push it up against the 4 foot RAS fence. With four feet of fence to guide it, the cut will comes out square in both directions.

   Some time in the 1980’s the safety gurus looked at the RAS and declared it too dangerous to use.  The blade could be in many different places, which made it easier to loose track of it and cut yourself.  Half the diameter of the blade was exposed and could do a very nasty cut if the used did not pay attention closely.  The safely gurus were so effective (destructive) that homeowners just stopped buying RASs.  By now I don’t know of any company that still makes them and sells them.

    But there are a lot of used RASs, in good shape, on Craigs list and other places for pennies.  I have seen RASs go for as little as $50.  Table saws will cost you more like $400.  They come in various sizes, from a big 16 inch blade down to a tiny 9 inch blade.  The big 16 inch blades are quite expensive, and unless you are doing timber framing, I would go for a smaller one.  I have a 10 inch RAS which is big enough for everything I do in my shop.  And 10 inch blades are widely available.

   Looking at a used RAS, trying to decide if it is good enough for your shop.  Plug it in, see if the motor runs and the blade turns.  Look for an iron casting for the arm.  The lightweight stamped sheet metal and plastic arms bend out of place during use yielding a cut that does not go where it ought to.  You want a round column with plenty of beef to it supported by a large and beefy bracket holding the column upright from the RAS frame.  The frame should be steel “C section” beams.  Check that the power head rolls smoothly all the way to both ends of the arm.  Check that the auto stops at 90 and 45 degrees are working.  Swing the arm back and forth and make sure the autostop clicks in and locks the arm in position.

    So far so good.  You want to check out the seller’s place.  You want the RAS manual, the blade guard and the anti kickback fingers.  If the seller cannot find, or does not have these items, no sweat there are other places.  Other things you might be able to obtain from the seller is a dado set, extra blades, or a chuck for router bits or twist drills.

   When you get your used RAS home to your shop you want to give it some tender loving care.  Wipe it down with a rag moistened in paint thinner or charcoal light to get the dirt and saw dust off it.  Rub down the guide grooves in the arm in which the power head rolls.  Sawdust gets in there and then gets flattened by the rollers into a bump.

   If the RAS needs one, you want a nice new sharp carbide blade.  I use an ordinary blade with 20 degrees of hook, the normal amount.  The safety gurus claim the RAS wants a blade with zero hook.  I don’t believe the gurus, the ordinary 20 degree blade works just fine in my shop.  You can clean the black stickum off old blades by soaking them in a solution of laundry borax in water.

   Quite likely you want to make a new table and a new fence, since the old one will have all sorts of saw cuts in it.  Make the new table 4 feet long.  Make the width match the old table.  Particle board ¾ inch thick makes a good flat smooth table.  Counter sink all bolts down til the blade won’t hit them

   After installing the new table, you need to align your RAS.  If the have the manual, read up on alignment.  First thing is to make the new table flat to the blade.  With power off, lower the blade until it just scraps the new table.  Swing the arm as far as it will go in either direction.  If it swings and just scrapes you are good, if the blade digs into the new table somewhere and sticks, you have a problem.  The RAS manual ought to give guidance for this predicament. Then you need to check that the arm at right angles cuts square, and the blade is at right angles to your new table/ 

    Now to use the RAS safely.  Keep fingers (and hands and everything) at LEAST 3 inches away from the blade.  If the work is too small to hold and keep 3 inches back, throw that piece in your scrap box and find an bigger piece.  Make sure to maintain 3 inch clearance when you move the blade from behind the fence out to the end of the arm.

   That’s for cross cutting.  For ripping there is a bit more.  The teeth of the blade are moving towards the feed side.  If they grab and stick, the blade will hurl the work back at you at a scary speed.  Never stand behind the blade when ripping, stand to one side, so if it does kick back and throw the work it will just hit the shop wall, and not you. To begin a rip, tilt the blade guard down so that it only admits the work to the blade and blocks any fingers that might be riding on top of the work.  After the blade guard is set, then set the anti kickback fingers to stop the blade from throwing the work.  I use a push stick to push the last part of the work into the blade, rather than my fingers.      

    Good luck with your new RAS purchase. 

Cannon Mountain ski weather. 23-Feb-23

I got six inches of nice new snow on my deck.  My deck is easy walking distance to Peabody slopes over at Cannon. So if I got six inches, Peabody slopes got six inches. Cannon summit might have gotten a bit more.  Skiing ought to be really good this weekend.