Options, Moods, and Markets

We see by the early futures that the odds of the market dropping 140 points at the open are better than the odds of remaining governor in Virginia. The technical problem for the market next week is simple enough:  At the time of our January options settlement the Aggregate Index was hovering around 22,681.  As … Read More

On Holden the Golden

I have pushed-back the next chapter on our solar/renewable energy book to Saturday because a couple of readers asked me to take a look at Gold which has popped up over the $1,300 level recently. When I went through the data (which is something we love to do!) I found something that’s definitely worth thinking … Read More

Making: The “Hot Rod Table Saw”

A simple rap today on the fine art of table saw improvement.  The table saw, especially when you match it up with a good set of Shark blades and a nice dado kit, is one of the more useful saws in the shop. This week I went through the process of getting mine set up … Read More

SoU: LCD, Jingoism, and 200-Million Suckers

We thought it would be useful to point out some of the Realities of the State of the Union speech which our “bordering on president” will delivery tonight. I say “bordering on president” because Nancy Pelosi and the Schumer types on the hill are practicing medicine without a license; neutering the Trump agenda by failing … Read More

Cottonseed Oil Explains Everything

“Huh?  What About the Markets?” I’ll get to that in a second.  But, I woke up this morning at 3 AM with a terrible knowing that the world’s treatment of cottonseed oil represents the crystallization of everything that is crazy in the world today.  Time for a little “long-chain-thinking” exercise. To begin, a long-ago article in Bon Appetit pointed … Read More

Power in the Greater Depression (Ch. 4)

Confessions of “A Battery Slumlord.”  As  our “superior prepping” for whatever comes has evolved, we began with a survey of  basic energy economics in a society that literally would starve without lots of power. After that, we ran through the process of “Scoring Power Sources” in chapter two.  On Wednesday, we rolled out some of … Read More

Prepping: For Super Bowl?

Sure! Nachos and dips, beer, jerky, in fact, you could go through your entire prepping kit and try out all those things this weekend. After all, since SB is the quintessential do-nothing weekend, what better time to pop open some Mountain House Beef Stroganoff 10 Can Freeze Dried Food – 6 CANS per Case.   OK, … Read More

Super Bowl: Did the Fed Just Pick the Patriots?

Football in a sec.  Jobs Out: Trump Bump Toast: We’ve been thinking things were headed this way for several weeks, but here’s the data hot off the BLS website: Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 304,000 in January, and the unemployment rate edged up to 4.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. … Read More