OK, CPI, Rest of World on Hold, TFA Mindscape is Changing

The market took a little knock down Monday (“sell the rumor”) so now – at last – the answer to the question which has been (poignantly) hanging in the wind since last week.

How Bad is it?  Well, you may not believe this one…

“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) decreased 0.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in June after rising 0.5 percent in May, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. This decline in the all items index was the largest 1-month decrease since April 2020 when it fell 0.8 percent. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.5 percent before seasonal adjustment.

The index for energy fell 5.7 percent in June after rising 3.9 percent in May, 3.8 percent in April, and 10.9 percent in March. The energy index was the largest contributor to the monthly all items decrease, more than offsetting increases in other indexes including those for shelter and food. The index for food increased 0.2 percent over the month, as did the index for food at home and the index for food away from home.”

Core inflation—excluding food and energy—comes in at 2.6 percent. But, our checkbook must not be from around here – we’re up way more than this.

In not too long, a matter of minutes really, the Fed chair will testify before the House banking committee.  Round two of that is tomorrow.

Fred Astaire might want to return from the Hereafter to pick up some fine “dancing points.”  Kevin Warsh may be anticipated to “dance lightly” around the question of future rate hikes.

Still – sadly – we don’t think Kevin Warsh will be as good at dance lessons as the Fred Astaire Studios are: Today, the company is a massive international ballroom and Latin dance franchise with dozens of locations.

Should we send the Fed chair a coupon? Let’s see if he twirls and twists, today. But it’s on MacArthur Blvd NW…so close…

News Compressor: ON

After a round of “inflation roulette”?  Only way to top that will be the news compressor outflow:

What changed overnight is the Gulf story crossed from a shaky ceasefire failure into a live oil, shipping, inflation, and interest-rate shock. Iran fired ballistic missiles toward a U.S. base in Jordan; Jordan reported intercepting four. U.S. forces conducted a third consecutive night of strikes, while a naval blockade covering Iran’s coastline, ports, terminals, and vessel traffic is scheduled to begin at 2000 GMT Tuesday. Two Emirati tankers were struck, killing one crew member and injuring eight. Brent moved above $86 as Hormuz tanker traffic fell to a two-month low.

Domestically, five people were killed in a targeted East St. Louis family shooting, and a contract helicopter pilot died supporting the Colorado wildfire response. The weather stack now adds potentially life-threatening flash flooding in southwest Texas through Thursday while the central U.S. heat dome and Western fire-resource strain continue.  Back East? Excessive rainfall outlooks with moderate risks persist in multiple regions; rare Enhanced Risk (Level 3) for severe thunderstorms in northern New England.  At least we get a fresh “wet spot” in the deal (ahem…).

More to weather inbound:  Missouri 1-in-1,000 year flood scale with mass helicopter rescues likely in Missouri — 85% probability.

How the Futurescope Looks

While you decide between asbestos or kapok, here’s what else is in play:

12–36 hours — oil and pump-price pressure: 87%. Brent has moved into the mid-$80s, and analysts cited by Reuters see an $85–$90 range while disruptions persist. A verified reopening or stand-down would cut the premium; another tanker casualty or attack on Saudi export infrastructure would add to it.

24–48 hours — rain danger shifts south: 92%. Southwest Texas faces excessive rainfall and potentially life-threatening flash and arroyo flooding through Thursday. The heat wave remains active from the Intermountain West through the Northern Plains and Upper Great Lakes.

24–72 hours — wildfire resource squeeze: 91%. National preparedness is at Level 4, more than 2,000 fires have started since July began, and roughly 17,000 personnel are deployed across more than a dozen states. A fresh wind event or dry-lightning outbreak could push the national system toward maximum readiness.

48–96 hours — chips, earnings and second-order inflation: 83%. TSMC is expected to report another record quarter Thursday, but the sector now sits between huge AI demand and rising memory/component prices. Oil, freight, electricity and chip costs are beginning to form one inflation stack rather than separate stories.

The Real Risk is Toward Month-end

The recent Mark Shryock piece has very level-headed people keeping tabs on what’s ahead. In a client note, for example, our consigliere notes:

Several weeks ago George and I were discussing the ramp back up of the Iran War and I stated to him my belief that the US/Israel would NOT ramp it back up until the World Cup completed. The final game is due to be played on July 19 in metro NYC.

My thoughts on that were twofold:
1) The World Cup is the largest sporting event in the world other than the Olympics, and in some respects is MUCH BIGGER than the Olympics
2) The World Cup this time around is being played in the US, which showcases the United States for the world, AND the final game is being played in metro NYC, a place that is key to understanding Trump’s mindset.

Krzysztof Jackowski (*the Polish Seer – g)  projected the start of WW3 to be the very end of Feb /early Mar 2026 a year ago, and in that respect his timing of what “MAY” be the start of the next World War may have been dead on since Trump/Israel started the War against Iran on Feb 28, 2026. It remains to be seen if that is the marker for the start of the War vs the attack on Ukraine but note in my model the Pre-Cursor War that history says must come BEFORE the big event fits all the dynamics of being the Pre-Cursor War. I have long said to this group even when that War began that it WAS the Pre-Cursor War and NOT the start of the main event.

Hopefully, G.A. Stewart will update us on that troubling Nostradamus quote (Century X, Quatrain 72) about King of Terror (from the skies) – by the end of this month.  Nevertheless, you can see a potential cluster in “predictive space” toward month-end.

Euro-War Ahead?

Which leaves us wondering when the Russian-NATO war (with power blackouts and possible rad release events) will show up.  Don’t get me wrong, though: We’re perfectly happy with things just settling down.  For now, some of our cyber-risks are ringing:

11. Home and small-business routers are again in the nation-state lane. CISA issued a July 13 advisory calling for improved router hygiene against Russian state-sponsored targeting. Replace unsupported routers, disable remote administration, update firmware and audit exposed management ports.

12. Ukraine is hitting two commodity systems at once. Ukraine reported strikes on Russian refineries, while Russia prepares to reroute roughly one-quarter of its grain-export pathway away from the Sea of Azov. That adds fuel and food-logistics risk outside Hormuz.

13. The Rhine is becoming a second freight problem. Low water near Kaub has forced some vessels down to roughly 20% of normal capacity and pushed Rotterdam-to-Karlsruhe transport costs sharply higher. Gulf disruption is therefore meeting an unrelated European inland-shipping constraint.

All of which raises the “Home War Gamer’s Ponder” – will low/drought rivers in Europe reduce NATO’s military posture?  And how then does Russia play it?

Which leaves us where?  Look what this information environment is doing to the human operator. And that leads us to a second cup of coffee and some deeper work.

Around the Ranch: TFA Mindscape Change

Sure, the inflation report is interesting, but not nearly as significant (or important) as the “news compressor” back-story. Which leads to tomorrow’s deep-dive on Peoplenomics.  That’s a 5,700 word report modestly titled:

Slow Layer Economic Cycle Drivers
Human I/O Limits, Cognitive Settling Time, AI, Martial Consciousness, and the Economics of Civilizational Reset

OK – let’s back up:  TFA is a reference to the newest book I’m writing.  It means Test-Fitting Apes.  Which, when you think about it is generally how we learn.  With me?  Good…

TFAs tend to obsess when a “new sparkly thing” comes along. Electronic communications.

We went so completely overboard on it that a whole economy now rests on human digital addictions.

BUT – and this is the key part – the addiction is fraying around the edges and headed for failure mode.

We saw this coming and it’s in the background in my book Co-Telligence. Already, we have implemented “news compression” because as information density becomes outlandish, compression is preferred to collapse.

Here’s the gratifying part: A colleague of mine (real, actual scientist fellow) working on the type and texture of the role information overload plays in the Alzheimer/dementia space, read the prepublication version of the paper.  And he spotted something I hadn’t noticed – in the “bow wave” of what will eventually be the partial collapse of Social Media.  Here’s what he reported:

“May be one reason why we have become a “snapshot” society, particularly among the younger generation. I notice now even YouTube has YouTube shorts. 30 seconds and off you go. We are in information overload at every level. I watched 2 girls in a table next to me in a restaurant yesterday. They spoke maybe a few dozen words to each other but scrolled their phone screens the whole time.

Your thesis on dementia and information overload is bang on. I thankfully learned it and changed my dialogue with my spouse. It is almost miraculous and changes the remaining days we have together dramatically.  My science mind is satisfied now. I have the measuring stick and something to measure.”

Actually, it’s his theory on information overload impacting quality of life, but more on this in the PN article tomorrow.

The real point is that it’s becoming clear in this very tentative — toe dabbling in the water — that humans need “settling time” — also something of recent import on the PN side.

This all traces back to what I call ‘The Duality Lie’ — the false binary of mind versus body that most systems (and religions) rest upon — when in reality we appear to operate in a Triune architecture: lightning-fast thought on the physical interface, slower electrochemical/qi flows in the Charged Body, with the ‘us/we’ (operator self) trying to harmonize both while starved for settling time in a flickered-info world.

You see, we are largely “Test-Fitting Apes.” New ideas come to us and our main method of research continues to be the Edison model: Simply test-fit everything you can find under (after Conan-Doyle) What remains is Truth.  Some topics take a while to completely test-fit before learning (ever look at divorce statistics?).

It all comes down to this: We all need more “settling time” because in video strobe-like fashion, society is getting the mental version of flicker-vertigo nausea from excessive “flickered info.”

It’s all too much — and we’re slowly figuring that out.

Write when it gets quiet,

George@Ure.net\