Reach over and flip the “I’m retired” switch…
News Compressor: On
Nice to sleep in late enough for a change. Still needed coffee before turning on the machinery.
Wheat and chaff first.
Claim-Chronology Audit
Hormuz — EVENT: U.S. forces struck three Iranian crude carriers following Iranian ballistic-missile attacks on U.S. naval vessels. Iran subsequently claimed another strike on a U.S. unmanned vessel. ATTRIBUTION: CENTCOM for the U.S. strikes; Iranian authorities for the claimed American-vessel hit; Reuters/AP carrying the respective claims. VERIFICATION STATUS: The U.S. tanker strikes are officially confirmed by CENTCOM. The latest Iranian claim has not been independently established in the material reviewed. PRECEDENT DATE: This renewed exchange was already active by September 5, 2026.
Lowell — EVENT: Category 4 Hurricane Lowell is approaching the western Hawaiian region with a Tropical Storm Watch for Kauai County. ATTRIBUTION: NHC/CPHC. VERIFICATION STATUS: Official meteorological observation and forecast. PRECEDENT DATE: Lowell had already reached major-hurricane status before September 6; the watch is the material new escalation.
Ukraine diplomacy — EVENT: Witkoff/Kushner Moscow talks were followed by a Kyiv visit amid limited capital-strike restraint. ATTRIBUTION: U.S., Russian and Ukrainian officials through AP and other reporting. VERIFICATION STATUS: Meetings and travel confirmed; peace outcome very much not included in the ticket price. PRECEDENT DATE: Moscow talks occurred September 5, 2026.
Anak Krakatau — EVENT: Eruption and widespread aviation disruption. ATTRIBUTION: Indonesian geological, transport and disaster agencies through Reuters/AP. VERIFICATION STATUS: Confirmed. PRECEDENT DATE: Heightened activity began before the September 6 airport shutdowns.
Holiday Interesting
U.S. jobs surprised hard to the upside. BLS reported 162,000 August payroll additions with unemployment unchanged at 4.1 percent, materially stronger than expected.
Which keeps a September Fed hike alive rather than putting it in the ground.
For the trading-minded, the next question is whether markets spend the coming week buying the rumor so they can sell the news when Powell & Company finally walk onstage. More than a week to run, though, which in markets is roughly enough time for three narratives, two reversals and a television expert to explain why all of them were obvious.
Diesel is now transmitting the geopolitical problem directly into the domestic economy. Triple A had it at $5.8970 versus $3.7106 a year ago.
That is +58.9 percent, for anyone whose coffee has not reached the arithmetic department yet.
Our year-plus food-price warnings are therefore out in the bullpen warming up. We are headed for the garden today because tomatoes remain one of the few assets that still pay dividends you can eat.
South Korea’s export machine is flashing AI rather than recession. The semiconductor and machine-demand side of Asia is still carrying plenty of heat.
Foxconn is saying essentially the same thing from Taiwan, expecting third-quarter performance above market expectations after record August revenue tied to AI-server demand.
AI capex cycle holding strong. Until it doesn’t.
Taiwan, meanwhile, is adding another $4.6 billion to defense spending.
Which takes us to the less cheerful part.
Fall war #3 looming? China’s pressure east of Taiwan is becoming more multidimensional. Beijing disclosed a seabed survey east of Taiwan alongside coast-guard activity, while Taipei rejected the operations as jurisdictional encroachment.
Gray-zone warfare is what you call it before somebody paints over the gray.
Taiwan also tracked ten Chinese government or naval vessels around the island in the latest reported daily window. No comparable air surge accompanied the count.
Elevated, but not breaking out. Yet.
Black Sea shipping risk is now bleeding directly into food-price risk. Reread the Iranian tanker story, then scan Ukraine shipping and grain flows.
Different war. Same grocery cart.
Europe has apparently noticed the resource angle, too.
Europe is moving toward tighter control of strategic scrap. The EU plans a broader prohibition on waste exports, including aluminum scrap, to non-OECD destinations as it tries to retain recyclable industrial feedstock.
Resource nationalism: because suddenly yesterday’s junk drawer is tomorrow’s strategic reserve.
France has begun formal road testing of Tesla FSD.
Which should produce useful data one way or another.
Domestic Casualty / Disaster Sweep
The strongest verified U.S. mass-casualty cluster still inside the rolling sweep is the Minneapolis apartment-building shooting: two victims were killed, the gunman also died, and multiple people — including responding officers — were wounded.
Atlantic tropical activity remains unusually quiet while the Pacific is carrying most of the weather load. NHC’s accessible September 4 material showed no active Atlantic cyclone while Pacific hurricanes Lowell, Marie and Karina remained active.
Apparently even the hurricanes have moved their manufacturing base west.
USGS’s significant-event feed still shows the recent M6.3 south-southwest of Nikolski, Alaska, and M5.4 near Jiangyou, China. No new very-large quake displaced those events in the significant-event list checked this morning.
Which, as disaster reports go, counts as the sort of boring we can live with.
More news sources on my personal home page here. We machine-scan hundreds more and analyze tons of RSS to distill out the “compressor juice.”
Around the Ranch: Retiredment
My word.
Derived from eight-plus hours of horizontal engineering, which leads naturally to today’s short installment of being retired.
Nondestructive pillow testing continues.
Results remain encouraging.
Now, if we can just stop binging The Last Ship on Netflix…
Our core content is on the Peoplenomics.com website. That’s $40/year for access and it’s where the Over-the-Horizon Software reports, the academic-level econ research and free copies of many of my books are found. Yesterday’s economics dive, Below the Zero Line, wraps up a four-paper series that describes a method for actually measuring the economic Long Wave.
Next book in line for release is Test-Fitting Apes: How Economics Goes Bananas. Free for subscribers when released.
My latest and best is a two-book series about what happens when anti-aging works and the government figures out it will bankrupt the system. Ancient Children is here, along with the rest of my books on my Amazon author page.
Write when I wake up,