Category Archives: agriculture

Chinese stocks lost 30% this year, has China’s lost decade begun?

I predicted dire times for China six years ago, when Xi Jinping amended the constitution to make himself leader for life, in charge of the government, the party, the military, and the banks. Emperor, I called him, here. It now seems the collapse has begun, or at least stagnation. Chinese history is cyclic. Good times of peace and plenty give rise to a supreme emperor whose excesses bring war and famine, or at least stagnation. The cycle repeats every 50 to 100 years. Since Nixon opened China in 1973, the country has seen 50 years of prosperity and spectacular growth, but the growth has stopped and may be in decline. The stock market (Shanghai Shenzen 300) peaked in 2021 and has declined 50% from there. It’s down 30% for the last 12 months to levels seen in December 2010. US growth seemed slower than China’s but it’s been more steady. The main US stock market, the S+P 500, has more than tripled since 2010, up 24.5% this year.

Five years of the Shanghai 300 index with hardly any change. There has hardly been change in 15 years. One could argue that the lost decade is here and on-going. .

Each year Chairman Xi’s behaves more dictatorial. Last year he arrested his predecessor, Hu Jintao in front of the Communist party. He now tracks all his citizens actions by way of face recognition and phone software, and gives demerits for wrong thinking and wrong behaviors. You lose merits by buying western cars or visiting western internet sites. Taking money abroad is generally illegal. Needless to say, such behavior causes people to want to take money abroad, just in case. Last week, Xi proposed a limit on video game playing and clamped down on banks, demanding low interest rates. This is bad for the gaming corporations and teenagers, and banks, but so far there are no protests as there is no war.

Kissinger said that war was likely, though. Xi is building the navy at a fast pace, adding fast surface ships, nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, and new attack airplanes. They’ve added hypersonic missiles too, and added listening stations and bases. There’s now a naval base in Djibouti, at the entrance to the Red Sea, where they oversee (or promote?) Iran’s attacks on Western shipping. Then there are the new Chinese Islands that were built to take oil and fishing rights, and to provide yet more military bases on key trade routes. These could easily be a trigger for war, but so far just one military interaction in the region. Last month, the Chinese and Philippines navy clashed over fishing!

In the Gulf of Finland last Month, a Chinese ship, New New Polarbear, destroyed the offshore cables and gas pipes between Finland and Estonia, in protest of Finland’s entry into NATO. It’s belligerent but not war. Undersea cables are not covered by the UN charter, law of the sea. Then there is the evidence that COVID-19 was the result of Chinese bioweapon development, and the Chinese spy ballon that was sent over the US. We maintain at peace, but an unsettled sort of peace — is it a preface to war? Wars don’t have to be big war against the west or Taiwan, more likely is Vietnam, IMHO.

China’s negative population growth means that property values will drop along with product consumption. Kids buy stuff; old folks don’t.

News from China is increasingly unreliable so it’s hard to tell what’s going on. There were claims of a coupe, but perhaps it was fake news. Reporters and spies have been arrested or shot so there is no window on anyone who knows. There are claims of high unemployment, and COVID deaths, and claims of a movement to “lie flat” and stop working. Perhaps that was behind the ban on excessive gaming. Who knows? Xi claims that China is self sufficient in food production, but record food shipments from the US to China suggest otherwise.

Major businesspeople have disappeared, often to reappear as changed men or women. Most recently, Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong clothing magnate, was indicted for sedition by tweets. Perhaps he just wanted to fire workers, or pay down debt, or move abroad (his daughter is). Many businesses exist just to make jobs, it seems. Not all of these businesses are efficient, or profitable. Some exist to violate US patents or steal technology, particularly military technology. I suspect that China’s hot new car company, BYD, is a money-losing, job factory, behind Tesla in every open market. Some 91 public firms have delisted over the last two years, effectively vanishing from oversight. Are they gone, or still operating as employment zombies. Will BYD join them? If China manages to avoid war, I have to expect stagnation, a “lost decade” or two, as in Japan saw from 1990 to 2010, as they unwound their unprofitable businesses.

A sign suggesting that a Chinese lost decade has begun is that China’s is seeing deflation, a negative inflation rate of -0.2%/year according to the world bank. It seems people want to hold money, and don’t want Chinese products, services, or investment. Japan saw this and tried a mix of regulation and negative interest rates to revive the interest, basically paying people to borrow in hopes they spend.

In Japan, the main cause of their deflation seems to have been an excess of borrowing against overvalued and unoccupied real estate. The borrowed money was used to support unprofitable businesses to buy more real estate. This seems to be happening in China too. As in Japan, China originally needed new lots of new apartments when they opened up and people started moving to the cities. The first apartments increased in value greatly so people built more. But now they have about 100% oversupply: one unoccupied or half-built apartment for every one occupied, with many mortgaged to the hilt against other overvalued apartments and flailing businesses.

Chinese Dept, personal and corporate match Japan’s at the start of the lost decade(s). Personal debt is at 150% of GDP, corporate debt is at65% of GDP, all propped up by real estate.

As in Japan 30 years ago, China’s corporate + personal debt is now about two times their GDP. Japan tried to stop the deflation and collapse by increased lending, and wasteful infrastructure projects. People in the know sent the borrowed money abroad confident that they would repay less when they repaid. We are already seeing this; low interest loans, money flowing abroad and a profusion of fast trains, unused roads, and unused bridges. I suspect most fast trains don’t pay off, as planes are faster and cheaper. These investments are just postponing the collapse. China is also seeing a birth dearth, 1.1 children per woman. This means that within a generation there will be half as many new workers and families to use the trains, or occupy the apartments. As the country ages, retirees will need more services with fewer people to provide them. China’s culture promotes abortion. China’s working population will decline for the next 30 years at least.

Japan came through all this without war, somewhat poorer, but unified and modern. It helped that Japan was a democracy, unified in culture, with an open press and good leaders (Abe). There was no collapse, as such, but 20 years of stagnation. China is a dictatorship, with a disunited culture, and a closed press. I think it will get through this, but it will have a much rougher time.

Robert Buxbaum January 9, 2024. China isn’t alone in facing collapse and/or lost decades. Germany is in a similar state, especially since the start of the Ukraine war. It’s a democracy like Japan, and pacifist for now.

Germany is the biggest loser in a long Ukraine war

Early in the Ukraine War with Russia, Poland sent 200 T-72 battle tanks to Ukraine. Most other NATO members joined in, sending tanks, missiles, guns, supplies and technology. Germany sent nothing and have continued to avoid helping Ukraine as much as possible while the war dragged on for a year. Germany seems to have hoped for a quick Russian victory leading to a quick return to the pre-war, state of affairs. That’s not likely. Even early on, the war looked like a slow, long slog. Reluctantly, this month, Germany promised to send 18 Leopard tanks to Ukraine, requesting as replacements, mothballed tanks from Switzerland.

Germany is currently the 4th largest economy in the world, just behind Japan, and ahead of India (for now). They also have the 3rd oldest population. Their place as the leading economic and political power in Europe rests on a close relationship with Russia that is fading, bringing Russian goods west and manufacturing with them. Before the war, Germany imported most of its oil and 65% of its natural gas from Russia. Much of the gas came via two direct pipelines, Nord Stream, that bypassed the rest of Europe. Well into the war, while the rest of Europe disengaged, Germany is still buying from Russia and funneling it west: steel, aluminum, titanium, ammonia and platinum. Germany is still buying some Russian natural gas by way of Poland. The German economy is based on turning these materials into cars, high tech machines, and chemicals for export to the US, the EU, and China. Despite the very old population, Germany counts on cheap labor from low wage EU nations. These transient, long term. workers do not get citizenship or retirement benefits. The current war has presented Germany with more potential workers, Ukrainian refugees, but far fewer Russian supplies. The German economy is shrinking, and so far, the Ukrainian refugees have been mostly left unemployed.

Ex German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, with Putin. He’s now head of Nordstream and Rosneft.

German industrial production is down by about 4% this year leaving its GPD at about $4T/year, about where it was in 2018. The US economy and the rest of Europe has grown. For an explanation, consider Germany’s ex-chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, shown at left with Putin. Schroder remains a leader in the ruling SDP party, the party of Ms Merkel and of the current chancellor. He is also the chairman of the board for Nord Stream AG and of Rosneft, (Russian aerospace). He also sits on the board for Gasprom (Russia’s energy conglomerate), Rothschild, a prominent International bank, and is chairman of the board of the Hannover 96 football club. He is symbolic of Germany’s attachment to Putin and Russia. But the rest of the EU, along with the rest of the developed world, has come to hate Putin and Russia (they’re not too fond of Rothchild either). Europe is unlikely to tolerate Germany’s Russian imports, including titanium (65% of Airbus titanium comes from Russia) or natural gas. Germany has asked for a titanium exception (and been denied). What’s more, three of the four Nord Stream pipelines have been blown up (by whom?) leaving Germany to buy natural gas from its NATO allies: Norway, Britain, France Holland, and the US. Gas purchases are expensive for Germany while helping its NATO neighbors — Germany has asked to be subsidized for energy too (unlikely, imho). It has also restarted old coal-burning power plants, an insult to the EU given how hard Germany pushed them on climate change.

Germany is now near recession. Much of Europe is close, but Germany is worse-off since they are buying from the rest.

Percent of population over 65, CIA Factbook.

Much of the EU can sell gas and food to Germany, and Russia can export to China, India, and Iran. German inflation averaged 8.5% last year (9.2% in January). That is not hyperinflation, but a shock for a country that’s averaged 1% inflation over the last 25 years. US inflation, by comparison was 7.5% last year — due to excess spending by the Democrats (imho), the so- called “inflation reduction act,” but at least the US economy grew, along with the US population. It seems to me that, without Russian supplies, Germany will continue to slip versus the world and versus the EU.

Excess mortality for European countries has been very high for the last 6 months, especially in Germany. Death rates are up by 25% or so. Much of it is heart-related. Perhaps it’s COVID, or long COVID, or air pollution, or vaccines, or depression.

The German population is dying too. They too among the highest percent population over 65, see map. The death rate has spiked 25% over the last 6 months, too. Europe and much of the EU saw similar spikes earlier in the pandemic, partially from COVID, the rest is alcoholism, drugs, the vaccine, pollution, or a psycho-somatic response to isolation and the war. Sweden has largely avoided these problems so far.

Germany has been propping up its inefficient industries with low cost loans. The idea, presumably, is that things will go back to normal soon, and the companies will make good. So far, the war goes on, and the loans discourage competition and modernization. It becomes ever more likely that these inefficient German companies will default. If so, they could take down their lenders as happened in Japan in the 90s, and as happened to Lehman Bros. in the US. The same seems likely for China.

It becomes ever more likely that these inefficient German companies will default.

Even if the war ended tomorrow, it’s not clear that Germany could go back to its pre-war status. The blown Nord Stream pipelines will need a year or more to repair. And may never restart, as sanctions might remain long after the fighting ends, as with Cuba or North Korea. Russia seems to have recognized this possibility, and has begun sending titanium, gas, and oil elsewhere, mostly to Iran, India, and China. Iran has become a major customer of Russian aluminum, and food, and is a major supplier of drones and consumer goods to Russia. In the last two years, the Iranian GDP has doubled to about $2T/year. It is now nearly half the size of Germany’s GDP and growing while Germany shrinks.

Russia’s trade with India and China has grown too. They are working to improve the Trans-Iranian railroad that would allow easy shipments from Russia to India and China via the port of Tehran. The first direct shipment of this sort was completed in July 2022– Caspian Sea containers to an Iranian train to ship to India and China. If the war goes on, Iran, India, and China will benefit at the expense of Germany, it seems. India, in particular. India’s economy is already approaching the size of Germany’s, and will probably pass it with the help of Russia’s energy and raw materials. Meanwhile, Germany is left with an aging population and aging industries; with few suppliers, and no obvious competitive advantages. Europe is almost as badly positioned, but they can still sell to Germany. As for Ukraine, it seems to be doing well, despite the war — or because of it. They still grow and export food and energy, and they are holding their own in the war, for now. There is destruction in the east, but Ukraine might come out stronger, as happened with South Korea and Vietnam. Russia too seems to have found new customers and might come out OK. It is hard to see how Germany comes out well. This, at least, is how I see things today.

Robert Buxbaum, March 8, 2023.

Biden stops fracking and gas prices go up 300% — Surprise!

Natural gas prices for June 2022 as of May 6, 2022.

Natural gas prices have quadrupled in the last 17 months. It’s gone from $2.07 per million BTU in mid January 2021 when Joe Biden took office, to nearly $9 today. It’s a huge increase in the cost to heat your home, and adds to the cost of any manufactured product you buy. Gasoline prices have risen too, going from $2/gallon when Biden took office to about $4.40 today. Biden blames the war with Russia, but the rise began almost as soon as he took office, and it far outstrips the rise in the price of wheat shown below (wheat is grown in Ukraine — it’s their major export). The likely cause is Biden’s moratorium on fracking, including his decision to stop permitting oil exploration and drilling on federal land. In recent weeks Biden has walked back some of this, to the consternation of the environmentalists. On April 15, 2022, the Interior Department announced this significant change including its first onshore lease sale since the moratorium.

Biden also cancelled the Keystone XL oil pipeline that would have brought tar-sands oil from Canada and North Dakota to Texas for refining. Blocking the pipeline helped increase gas prices here and helped cause a recession in Alberta and North Dakota. The protesters who claimed to speak for the natives are not affected.

Another issue fueling price increases is that Biden is printing money. Bidenflation is running at 8%/year. It’s not hyperinflation, but it’s getting close. It’s money taken from your pocket and from your savings. Much of the money is given to friends: to groups that Biden thinks will use it virtuously, but inflation is money taken from us, from our pockets and savings. Another beneficiary are those who are rich enough to take no salary, but live by borrowing against their real estate and corporate equity. The richest people in the US do this, earning $1 per year or less, (here’s a list compiled by Bloomberg, it’s basically every rich person). They pay no taxes, as they have no income. The only way to tax them is by tariffs, taxing what they import, but the government is against tariffs.

What you can do, personally about energy-cost inflation is not much. I would recommend insulating your home. I plan to repaint the roof white, and put in a layer of roof insulation. I also have fruit trees: an apple tree and a peach tree, grapes and a juneberry. They provide summer shade, and you get a lot of fruit with minimal work. Curtains are a good investment. Another thought is to buy solar cells. A vegetable garden is fun too, but it’s unlikely to pay you back.

Winter wheat prices are up by about 40%, likely due to the loss of supply from Ukraine and Russia

Speaking of wheat prices, they are up. They increased 40% when Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and have held steady at that level since. This is far less increase than for natural gas. Corn and rice prices are up too, but nowhere near as much. Fertilizer prices are up 300%, though, and Biden has indicated he’d like to push for a sustainable alternative; is that poop? There is a baby formula shortage too. We can handle it, I think, unless Biden get involved, or starts a hot war with Russia.

Robert Buxbaum May 10, 2022. As a fun sidelight, here is Biden answering questions about Pakistan when someone in a Bunny costume grabs him and walks him away from the reporters. Who is that masked handler? What’s going on in Pakistan?

The Pope’s crusade against agricultural greed.

The Pope goes to long lengths to show how much he supports the poor, oppressed people of the world; he washes the feet of Muslim prisoners, he campaigns against Israeli occupation of Palestine, and scolds America, but not China they must reduce carbon output. Usually he picks the wrong villains, in my opinion. His latest effort is against the producers and distributors of food, the agribusinessmen. If only they would charge less, everyone would have more, or so he says.

On World Food Day, Pope Francis placed the blame on capitalism in the food market. Some examples of his speech and tweets follow: “The fight against hunger demands we overcome the cold logic of the market, which is greedily focused on mere economic profit and the reduction of food to a commodity, and strengthening the logic of solidarity.”

In the Pope’s view the cold logic of the market is the source of hunger. I think it is the source of his food and mine, and for the most part everyone’s.

“Thinking about these situations, in God’s name I want to ask The big food corporations to stop imposing monopolistic production and distribution structures that inflate prices and end up withholding bread from the hungry.”

The Pope blames high food prices on producers and distributors who are, in his words, “withholding bread from the hungry.”  Of course, all the bread the Pope eats comes from these producers and distributors. It is the same for the bread of all the Archbishops and virtually all the priests; it all comes from these agribusinessmen, who charge more than he would like. They are also the source of the church’s wine, and meat, and vegetables. Folks who do not grow food themselves, and who do not transport it, or process charge those who do these things as greedy, withholding monsters. That any of them have food is only because of these monsters; without them, the poor of the world would starve to death. If he thinks he can do better, he should try, perhaps giving up his time washing feet.

The Pope believes that big food corporations are causing starvation and withholding food from the hungry.

Free market pricing is how farmers know what to produce, where, and who to sell too. It’s also how customers know what to buy and keep, and what to throw away, or save for a special occasion. Without these clues, farmers would grow things people don’t want, and much of the good stuff would go to waste.

High prices for some foods is the indicator that causes agribusiness individuals (the so-called greedy) to see an unmet need. They then employ people in the manufacture and distribution of these foods reducing the employment in the production of other foods where the margins are smaller. These food-price signals are also the fuel for technological innovation — the innovation that has made food abundant and relatively affordable, especially in the capitalist west.

The west has lead in food innovation precisely because of the motivation of food profit. Monsanto invents and distributes seeds for fast-growing grains precisely because there is profit in it, and it is these seeds that reduces the price to the consumer. Colonel Sanders invented the high-pressure fryer because it allowed him to fry more chicken faster. The result is profits for KFC and lower prices for the consumers. It is only because of the so-called corporate greed that western consumers have so many options at such low prices that obesity is a big problem, and starvation is virtually unknown. In the US you can buy $1 hamburgers when the minimum wage is about $10/hour. That is, you can buy a hamburger with the income from 6 minutes of work. You can not do that in any country ruled by enlightened leaders where profit is banned.

Charity proliferates in a free market because many of the people have excess give it willingly targeted to help. They give to the Church, or to the poor directly, or in ways that help the poor indirectly. Such giving makes a bond between giver and recipient and cheers both. Almost immediately, the recipient of the charity enters the capitalist market to trade excess and unneeded items for items that are needed. Perhaps the recipient got too many cans of food, but no shoes, or no can-opener. The market allows a rectification at a fair exchange.

And as for the mandate to lecture world leaders on the evils of capitalism, there is none. Moses, in the desert offers to buy food and water at the market prices. On a similar note Jesus pointed out that financial authority rested with the Emperor, not with the religious leaders. In this vein, Pope Galasius I wrote to Emperor Anastasius in AD 494 that there were two systems: the sacred authority of the priests, and the royal power. In the west, the royal power over food is the marketplace, and it has shown itself to be smarter and more giving than the smartest, most charitable religious leaders.

Robert Buxbaum, November 29, 2021. Having complained about the pope I would like to say that Cardinal Tim Dolan, Archbishop of New York does a wonderful job. His main efforts are education and helping immigrants: needed work. And, as best I know, he has never criticized any productive business for charging too much.

Methuselah palm finds a mate after 2100 years

The Judean date palm was extinct until 15 years ago, remembered only through pictures, eg. on ancient coins, see below, and mentions in ancient books including the psalms of David. There were also some ancient seeds, 2100 years old, that had been found buried in a jar near the entry ramp of the fortress Masada. Sarah Sallon of Israel’s Natural Medicine Research Center became convinced that these dates had medicinal as well as historical value, and badgered the archeologists for seed samples and permission to try her luck reviving this extinct plant. The archeologists thought she was nuts but eventually she got permission to try her luck with some seeds that Prof Ehud Netzer, had stored in his desk.

Dr. Elaine Solowey, Dr. Elaine Solowey, Director of the Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and, the Methuselah tree. Note the distinctive leaves. The tree is not ten feet tall and ready to mate.

Against all odds, Dr. Sallon, in 2005, succeeded in germinating one of these ancient seeds, a feat thought to be botanically impossible. Named, Methuselah it was the oldest seed ever grown, attracting wide international attention. But it was a one-off, a male without a female plant.

Methuselah was, at that point, a historic artifact – an interesting tourist attraction at the center fro sustainable agriculture. There was no way to grow the famous Judaic dates, though without a female parent. But Dr. Sallon was undeterred, she found another archaeologist who had recovered a trove of date seeds from various sites in Qumran — the site where the Dead Sea scrolls had been discovered, plus from the Wadi Makukh and the Wadi Kelt. Some of these seeds were as old as the one that produced Methuselah.

Vespasian coin with Judaean palm and the legend “Iudaea Capta.” (Judea is captured). A Judean date palm is shown along with a mourning Jew and a triumphant Roman.

A group headed by Dr. Sallon, selected a total of 34 seeds for further study, choosing specimens that appeared to be visually to be intact, whole seeds, in good condition, and without holes. Chosen to study included more seeds from Masada (8 seeds), Qumran (18 seeds), Wadi Makukh (7 seeds), and Wadi Kelt (1 seed). The seeds were identified by code numbers, photographed, and measured for weight and length (with the exception of Masada seeds, which unfortunately were not measured). One date seed, from the Qumran excavations (HU 37 A11), was selected as a control and left unplanted.

The remaining 33 seeds were subjected to a preparatory process to increase the likelihood of germination): the seeds were soaked in water for 24 hours and in gibberellic acid (5.19 mM) (OrthoGrow, USA) for 6 hours to encourage embryonic growth. This was followed by Hormoril T8 solution (5 g/liter) (Asia-Riesel, Israel) for 6 hours to encourage rooting and KF-20 organic fertilizer (10 ml/liter) (VGI, Israel) for 12 hours. All solutions were maintained at 35°C.

Following the above procedure, one seed was found to be damaged and not planted. The others were separately potted in sterile potting soil, 1 cm below the surface, and placed in a locked quarantine site at the Arava Institute of Environmental Sciences in southern Israel.

The six young trees. the two females are at the bottom right.

Six of these germinated. Periodically they were treated with KF-20 (10 ml/liter) and iron chelate (10 g/liter). Irrigation used desalinated water, as the previous study indicated that using the region’s highly mineralized water produced “tip burn” (darkening and drying of leaves). The seeds that did not germinate were removed for further testing and the shells of the seeds that did sprout were tested to determine their sex,  Of the six, two were determined to be female and four male. The female plants have been named Judith and Hannah, two Biblical names associated with children. It will be many years before they can mate, but it’s a hopeful start. The four other plants are Adam, Jonah, Urial, and Boaz. Radio-carbon dating suggests that one of these female seeds is 2100 years old, like Methuselah, while the other is only 1900 years old. See article in AAAS.

If either of the female plants survives to maturity, and if they prove to be compatible, we may yet get to eat of the famous biblical fruit. When the Bible calls Israel is called the land of milk and honey, the honey is the date honey of this tree.  Will these dry bones yet rise and live? Perhaps so. Dr. Solloway seas the revival of this plant as a symbol of hope. I do too.

Robert E. Buxbaum, June 7, 2020, There is a bit of Frankenstein in any revival of the dead, but I’m ore comfortable bringing back ancient plants than bringing back the Wooly Mammoth, the passenger pigeon, or the T Rex.

The main route of lead poisoning is from the soil by way of food, dust, and smoke.

While several towns have had problems with lead in their water, the main route for lead entering the bloodstream seems to be from the soil. The lead content in the water can be controlled by chemical means that I reviewed recently. Lead in the soil can not be controlled. The average concentration of lead in US water is less than 1 ppb, with 15 ppb as the legal limit. According to the US geological survey, of lead in the soil, 2014., the average concentration of lead in US soil is about 20 ppm. That’s more than 1000 times the legal limit for drinking water, and more than 20,000 times the typical water concentration. Lead is associated with a variety of health problems, including development problems in children, and 20 ppm is certainly a dangerous level. Here are the symtoms of lead poisoning.

Several areas have deadly concentrations of lead and other heavy metals. Central Colorado, Kansas, Washington, and Nevada is particularly indicated. These areas are associated with mining towns with names like Leadville, Telluride, Silverton, Radium, or Galena. If you live in an areas of high lead, you should probably not grow a vegetable garden, nor by produce at the local farmer’s market. Even outside of these towns, it’s a good idea to wash your vegetables to avoid eating the dirt attached. There are hardly any areas of the US where the dust contains less than 1000 times the lead level allowed for water.

Lead content of US soils, from the US geological survey of soils, 2014. Michigan doesn’t look half bad.

Breathing the dust near high-lead towns is a problem too. The soil near Telluride Colorado contains 1010 mg/kg lead, or 0.1%. On a dust-blown day in the area, you could breath several grams of the dust, each containing 1 mg of lead. That’s far more lead than you’d get from 1000 kg of water (1000 liters). Tests of blood lead levels, show they rise significantly in the summer, and drop in the winter. The likely cause is dust: There is more dust in the summer.

Recalled brand of curry powder associated with recent poisoning.

Produce is another route for lead entering the bloodstream. Michigan produce is relatively safe, as the soil contains only about 15 ppm, and levels in produce are generally far smaller than in the soil. Ohio soils contains about three times as much lead, and I’d expect the produce to similarly contain 3 times more lead. That should still be safe if you wash your food before eating. When buying from high-lead states, like Colorado and Washington, you might want to avoid produce that concentrates heavy metals. According Michigan State University’s outreach program, those are leafy and root vegetables including mustard, carrots, radishes, potatoes, lettuce, spices, and collard. Fruits do not concentrate metals, and you should be able to buy them anywhere. (I’d still avoid Leadville, Telluride, Radium, etc.). Spices tend to be particularly bad routes for heavy metal poisoning. Spices imported from India and Soviet Georgia have been observed to have as much as 1-2% lead and heavy metal content; saffron, curry and fenugreek among the worst. A recent outbreak of lead poisoning in Oakland county, MI in 2018 was associated with the brand of curry powder shown at left. It was imported from India.

Marijuana tends to be grown in metal polluted soil because it tolerates soil that is too polluted fro most other produce. The marijuana plant concentrates the lead into the leaves and buds, and smoking sends it to the lungs. While tobacco smoking is bad, tobacco leaves are washed and the tobacco products are regulated and tested for lead and other heavy metals. If you choose to smoke cigarettes, I’d suggest you chose brands that are low in lead. Here is an article comparing the lead levels of various brands. . Better yet, I’s suggest that you vape. There are several advantages of vaping relative to smoking the leaf directly. One of them is that the lead is removed in the process of making concentrate.

Some states test the lead content of marijuana; Michigans and Colorado do not, and even in products that are tested, there have been scandals that the labs under-report metal levels to help keep tainted products on the shelves. There is also a sense that the high cost encourages importers to add lead dust deliberately to increase the apparent density. I would encourage the customer to buy vape or tested products, only.

Here is a little song, “pollution” from Tom Lehrer, to lighten the mood.

Robert Buxbaum, November 24, 2019. I ran for water commissioner in 2016 and lost. I may run again in 2020. Who knows, this time I may win.

How to avoid wet basements

My house is surrounded my mulch — it absorbs enough rainwater that I rarely have to water.

Generally speaking water gets to your basement from rain, and the basic way you avoid wet basements is by providing some more attractive spot for the rainwater to go to. There are two main options here: divert the water to a lake or mulch-filled spot at least 8 feet away from your home, or divert it to a well-operated street or storm drain. My personal preference is a combination of both.

At right I show a picture of my home taken on a particularly nice day in the spring. Out front is a mulch-filled garden and some grass. On the side, not shown is a driveway. Most of the rain that hits our lawn and gardens is retained in 4 inches of mulch, and waters the plants. Four inches of mulch-covered ground will hold at least four inches of rainwater. Most of the rain that hits the house is diverted to downspouts and flows down the driveway to the street. Keeping some rainwater in the mulch means you don’t have to pay so much to water the trees and shrubs. The tree at the center here is an apple tree. I like fruit trees like this, they really suck up water, and I like the apples. We also have blueberries and roses, and a decorative pear (I like pears too, but they are messy).

In my opinion, you want some slope even in the lawn area, so excess rainwater will run to the sewers and not form a yard-lake, but that’s a professional preferences; it’s not always practical and some prefer a brief (vernal ) lake. A vernal lake is one that forms only in the spring. If you’ve got one, you may want to fill it with mulch or add trees that are more water tolerant than the apple, e.g. swamp oak or red cedar. Trees remove excess water via transpiration (enhanced evaporation). Red Cedars grow “knees” allowing them to survive with their roots completely submerged.

For many homes, the trick to avoiding a flooded basement is to get the water away from your home and to the street or a retention area.

When it comes to rain that falls on your hose, one option is to send it to a vernal lake, the other option is to sent it to the street. If neither is working, and you find water in your basement, your first step is to try to figure out where your rainwater goes and how it got there. Follow the water when it’s raining or right after and see where it goes. Very often, you’ll discover that your downspouts or your driveway drain into unfortunate spots: spots that drain to your basement. To the extent possible, don’t let downspout water congregate in a porous spot near your house. One simple correction is to add extenders on the downspouts so that the water goes further away, and not right next to your wall. At left, I show a simple, cheap extender. It’s for sale in most hardware stores. Plastic or concrete downspout pans work too, and provide a good, first line of defense agains a flood basement. I use several to get water draining down my driveway and away from the house.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, your driveway or patio slopes to your house. If this is the case, and if you are not quite ready to replace your driveway or patio, you might want to calk around your house where it meets the driveway or patio. If the slope isn’t too great, this will keep rainwater out for a while — perhaps long enough for it to dry off, or for most of the rainwater to go elsewhere. When my driveway was put in, I made sure that it sloped away from the house, but then the ground settled, and now it doesn’t quite. I’ve put in caulk and a dirt-dam at the edge of the house. It keeps the water out long enough that it (mostly) drains to the street or evaporates.

A drain valve. Use this to keep other people’s sewer water out of your basement.

There is one more source of wet basement water, one that hits the houses in my area once a year or so. In our area of Oakland county, Michigan, we have combined storm and sanitary sewers. Every so often, after a big rain, other people’s rainwater and sanitary sewage will come up through the basement drains. This is really a 3rd world sewer system, but we have it this way because when it was put in, in the 1900s, it was first world. One option if you have this is to put in a one-way drain valve. There are various options, and I suggest a relatively cheap one. The one shown at right costs about $15 at Ace hardware. It will keep out enough water, long enough to protect the important things in your home. The other option, cheaper and far more hill-billy, is to stuff rags over your basement drains, and put a brick over the rags. I’ll let you guess what I have in my basement.

Robert Buxbaum, June 13, 2019

New Chinese emperor, will famine not follow

For most of its 2300 year history, the Chinese empire has rattled between strong leaders who brought famine, and weak leaders who brought temporary reprieve. Mao, a strong leader, killed his associates plus over 100 million by his “great leap forward” famine. Since then, 30+ years, we’ve had some weaker leaders, semi-democracy, and some personal wealth, plus the occasional massacre, e.g. at Tiananmen square, and a growing demographic problem. And now a new strongman is establishing himself with hopes of solving China’s problems. I hope for the best, but fear the repeat of the worse parts of Chinese history.

Two weeks ago, Chairman Xi amended the Chinese constitution to make himself emperor for life, essentially. He’s already in charge of the government, the party, and the military. Yesterday (Tuesday), he consolidated his power further by replacing the head of the banks. The legal system is, in theory, is the last independent part of government, but there is hardly any legal system in the sense of a balance of power. If history is any guide, “Emperor” Xi will weaken the courts further before the year is out. He will also likely remove many or all of his close associates and relatives. It is not for nothing that Nero, Stalin, and Mao killed their relatives and friends — generally for “corruption” following a show trial.

China's Imperial past is never is quite out of sight. Picture from the Economist.

China’s past is never is quite out of sight. Picture from the Economist.

Xi might be different, but he faces a looming demographic problem that makes it likely he will follow the president of the stronger emperors. China’s growth was fueled in part by a one child policy. Left behind is an aging, rural population with no children to take care of the elderly. As top-down societies do not tolerate “useless workers,” I can expect a killing famine within the next 10 years. This would shed the rural burden while providing a warning to potential critics. “Burn the chicken to scare the monkey,” is a Chinese Imperial aphorism. Besides, who needs dirt farmers when we have modern machines.

Lazy beds (feannagan) use only half the soil are for planting. The English experts were sure this was inefficient and land-wasting. Plowing was imposed on Ireland, and famine followed

“Lazy beds” of potatoes were used in Ireland for a century until experts forced their abandonment in the mid 1800s. The experts saw the beds, and the Irish as lazy, inefficient, and land-wasting. Famine followed.

Currently about 40% of the country is rural, about 560 million people spread out over a country the size of Canada or the US. The rest, 60% or 830 million, live concentrated in a few cities. The cities are rich, industrial, and young. The countryside is old, agricultural and poor, salaries are about 1/3 those of the cities. The countryside holds about 2/3 of those over 65, about 100 million elderly with no social safety net. The demographic imbalance is likely to become worse — a lot worse — within the next decade.

What is likely to happen, I fear, is that the party leaders — all of whom live in the cities — will decide that the countryside is full of non-productive, uneducated whiners. They will demand that more food should be produced, and will help them achieve this by misguided science and severe punishments. Mao’s experts, like Stalin’s and Queen Victoria’s, demanded unachievable quotas and academic-based advice that neither the leaders nor the academics had ever tried to make work. Mao’s experts told peasants to kill the birds that were stealing their grain. It worked for a while until the insects multiplied. As for the quotas, the party took grain as if the quotas were being met. If the peasants starved, they starved.

I expect that China’s experts will propose machine-based modern agriculture, perhaps imported from the US or Israel: Whatever is in style at the time. The expert attitude exists everywhere to this day, and the results are always the same. See potato famine picture above. When the famine comes, the old will request food and healthcare, but the city leaders will provide none, or just opioids as they did to ailing Elvis. When the complaining stops the doctor is happy.

China's population pyramid as of 2016. Notice the bulge of 40-55 year olds.

China’s population pyramid as of 2016. Notice the bulge of 40-55 year olds. Note too that there are millions more males (blue) than females (pink).

In single leader societies, newspapers do not report bad news. Rather, they like to show happy, well-fed peasants singing the leaders’ praise. When there’s a riot too big to ignore, rioters are presented as lazy malcontents and counter-revolutionaries. Sympathizers are sent to work in the fields. American academia will sing the praises of the autocratic leader, or will be silent. We never see the peasants, but often see the experts. And we live in a society where newspapers report only the bad, and where we only believe when there pictures. No pictures, no story. As with Stalin’s Gulags, Mao’s famine, or North Korea today, there are likely to be few pictures released to the press. Eventually, a census will reveal that tens of million aged have vanished, and we’ll have to guess where they went.

I can expect China to continue its military buildup over the next decade. The military will be necessary to put down riots, and keep young men occupied, and to protect China from foreign intervention. China will especially need to protect its ill-gotten, new oil-assets. Oil is needed if China is to replace its farmers with machines. It will be a challenge for a wise American leader to avoid being drawn into war with China, while protecting some of our interests: Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc. As with Theodore Roosevelt, he should offer support and non-biassed mediation. Is Trump up to this?  Hu Knows?

Robert Buxbaum, March 21, 2018. The above might be Xi-nephobia, Then again, this just in: Chairman Xi announces that Taiwan will face punishment if it attempts to break free. Doesn’t sound good.

pee in the shower and other water savers

Do you want to save the planet and save money at the same time? Here are some simple tips:

The first money and planet saver, is to pee in the shower. For those who don’t have a lawn, or who don’t water, your single biggest water cost is likely the toilet. Each person in your household will use it several times per day, at roughly 1.6 gallons per flush. In Oak Park, Michigan the cost of water is 1.5¢/gallon, so each flush costs you, roughly 2.5¢. If you pee in the shower every morning, you’ll save yourself about one flush per day, or 2.5¢. Over the course of a year you’ll have used about 500 gallons less, and will have saved yourself somewhere between $5 and $10. Feel good about yourself every morning; the effort involved is truly minimal.

Related to peeing in the shower, I should mention that many toilets leak. A significant part of your water bill can often be cut by replacing the “flapper valve on the inside of your toilet tank, and/or by cleaning the needle fill valve. To see if you need this sort of help, put a few drops of food dye in the toilet when you leave in the morning. If the color is largely gone by the time you get back, the toilet is leaking the equivalent of a few volumes per day, that is at least as much water as is flushed. If the color goes faster, or you hear the tank refill when no one used it, you’re leaking more. Check the flapper and replace it if it’s worn — it’ll cost about $3 — and check the needle-fill valve. They don’t work forever. Cleanliness is near godliness.

Mulch is good, this is too much concentrated by the tree trunk. Use only 2 inches and spread it out to save water and weeding.

Mulch is good, this is too much concentrated by the tree trunk. Use only 2-3 inches and spread it out from the trunk to save water and weeding without attracting bugs.

If your valve is leaking and you decide to replace it, you may want to replace with a variable flush valve. Typically, there are two options: a big vale for big flush (1.6 gal) and a small valve for small flush (1 gal or less). These are widely used in Europe. You can make up for this cost rather quickly at 1.5¢/gallon.

The next big issue is lawn-care. If you water your lawn and flowers daily, you’ve likely noticed that you pay about $300/month for water in the summer: a lot more than in the winter, or than your lazes-faire neighbor in the summer. Every $150 of summer-excess, water bill you pay represents about 10,000 gallons applied to your lawn. That’s a cubic foot, or 1¢ to 2¢ of water applied per ft2 per month for typical watering. While many sites advise that you can save by adding a rain barrel, I disagree. Rain barrels are costly, ugly, and are a lot of work ago plumb in. And each barrel only holds 55 gallons of water, 82¢ worth when full. You do a lot better, IMHO by putting down an inch or two of mulch around your flowers and vegetables. This mulch requires no work and will keep you from needing to water these areas for the 3-4 days after every rainfall. A layer of 1″ to 2″ will help your soil hold 0.5 to 1 gallon of water per square foot. At typical prices of mulch and water, this will pay for itself in 1-2 years and will help you avoid weeding. Mulch is a far better return than the rain-barrels that are often touted, and there’s far less effort involved. Buy the mulch, not the barrel, but don’t put down too more than 2″ on flowers and vegetable. Trees can take 3 -4″; don’t use more. Avoid a mulch mountain right next to a tree, it causes the roots to grow weird, and provides a home for bugs and undesirable anaerobic molds.

A little more work than the above is to add a complete rain garden or bioswale. Build it at the bottom of any large incline on your property, where the water runs off (It’s likely a soggy swamp already). Dig the area deeper and put, at the bottom of the hole, a several-inch layer of mulch and gravel. Top it off with the soil you just removed, ideally raising the top high enough that, if the rain garden should fill, the water will run off to the street. Plant in the soil at the top long-rooted grasses, or flowers, vegetables, or water-tolerant trees. You may want to direct the water from your home’s sump pump here too (It can help to put a porous pipe at the bottom to distribute this water). If you do this right, you’ll get vegetables or trees and you won’t have to water the garden, ever. Also, you’ll add value to your property by removing the swampy eyesore. You’ll protect your home too, since a major part of home flooding comes from the water surge of sump water to the sanitary sewer.

Robert E. Buxbaum, April 14, 2017. I ran for water commissioner, Oakland County, MI, Nov. 2016. Among my other thoughts: increased retention to avoid flooding, daylighting rivers, and separating the sanitary from the storm sewers. As things stand, the best way to save money on water– get the same deal the state gave to Nestle/ Absopure: they pay only $200/year to pump 200 gal/minute. That is, they pay only 1/3000 of what you and I pay. It helps to have friends in government.

A plague of combined sewers

The major typhoid and cholera epidemics of the US, and the plague of the Al Qaeda camps, 2009 are understood to have been caused by bad sewage, in particular by the practice of combining sanitary + storm sewage. Medieval plagues too may have been caused by combined sewers.

Combined sewer system showing an rain-induced overflow, a CSO.

A combined sewer system showing an rain-induced overflow, a CSO.

A combined system is shows at right. Part of the problem is that the outfall is hard to contain, so they tend to spew sewage into the lakes and drinking water as shown. They are also more prone to back up during rain storms; separated systems can back up too, but far less often. When combined sewers back up, turds and other infected material flows into home basements. In a previous post, “follow the feces,” I showed the path that Oakland county’s combined sewers outfalls take when they drain (every other week) into Lake St. Clair just upstream of the water intake, and I detailed why, every few years we back up sewage into basements. I’d like to now talk a bit more about financial cost and what I’d like to do.

The combined sewer system shown above includes a small weir dam. During dry periods and small rain events, the dam keeps the sewage from the lake by redirecting it to the treatment plant. This protects the lakes so that sometimes the beaches are open, but there’s an operation cost: we end up treating a lot of rain water as if it were sewage. During larger rains, the dam overflows. This protects our basements (usually) but it does so at the expense of the drinking water, and of the water in Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie.

As a way to protect our lakes somewhat Oakland county has added a retention facility, the George W. Kuhn. This facility includes the weir shown above and a huge tank for sewage overflows. During dry periods, the weir holds back the flow of toilet and sink water so that it will flow down the pipe (collector) to the treatment plant in Detroit, and so it does not flow into the lake. Treatment in Detroit is expensive, but nonpolluting. During somewhat bigger rains the weir overflows to the holding tank. It is only during yet-bigger rains (currently every other week) that the mixture of rain and toilet sewage overwhelms the tank and is sent to the river and lake. The mess this makes of the lake is shown in the video following. During really big rains, like those of August 2014, the mixed sewage backs up in the pipes, and flows back into our basements. With either discharge, we run the risk of plague: Typhoid, Cholera, Legionnaires…

Some water-borne plagues are worse than others. With some plagues, you can have a carrier, a person who can infect many others without becoming deathly sick him or herself. Typhoid Mary was a famous carrier of the 1920s. She infected (and killed) hundreds in New York without herself becoming sick. A more recent drinking water plague, showed up in Milwaukee 25 years ago. Some 400,000 people were infected, and 70 or so died. Milwaukee disinfected its drinking water with chlorine and a bacteria that entered the system was chlorine tolerant. Milwaukee switched to ozone disinfection but Detroit still uses chlorine.

Combined sewers require much larger sewage treatment plants than you’d need for just sanitary sewage. Detroit’s plant is huge and its size will need to be doubled to meet new, stricter standards unless we bite the bullet and separate our sewage. Our current system doesn’t usually meet even the current, lower standards. The plant overflows and operation cost are high since you have to treat lots of rainwater. These operation costs will keep getter higher as pollution laws get tougher.

In Oakland county, MI we’ve started to build more and more big tanks to hold back and redirect the water so it doesn’t overwhelm the sewage plants. The GWK tank occupies 1 1/2 miles by about 100 feet beneath a golf course. It’s overwhelmed every other week. Just think of the tank you’d need to hold the water from 4″ of rain on 900 square mile area (Oakland county is 900 square miles). Oakland’s politicians seem happy to spend money on these tanks because it creates jobs and graft and because it suggests that something is being done. They blame politics when rain overwhelms the tank. I say it’s time to end the farce and separate our sewers. My preference is to separate the sewers through the use of French drains or bio-swales, and through the use of weir dams. I’m running for drain commissioner. Here’s something I’ve written on the chemistry of sewage, and on the joy of dams.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum, July 1-Sept 16, 2016.