Second Depression – Survival Gardening Guide

Let me see: The stock market has dropped 10.6 percent in the last 12 calendar days and you wonder why this topic and why now?  You are welcome to remain skeptical of our long wave economic views, but unfortunately, the replay of history is continuing as a bad rhyme with little reason. Seen BTC yet … Read More

2nd Depression Notes: NFIB & PPI Data plus 4M Woes

[Reader Survey Questions (toss answers up as comments(: We may cancel our MailChimp service that sends out notices when new updates are posted.  Anyone going to miss it? I miss $300/year… What is the ideal length/depth for our reports?  Eyeing that 1,000 word area as an “overhead limit” with longer works only going on Peoplenomics. How … Read More

1929 Compared: Powell’s Crash Crossroads -BTC Fails

Before the 1929 Comparison Chart, realize Bitcoin is collapsing. A canary in the financial coal mine has just keeled over. Just over $24,200 $23,846 as I write this, we regrettably are on track to another basic economic prediction coming true. With condolences to our readers who “took the plunge” into Bitcoin – who we fear … Read More

ShopTalk Sunday: Build Your Own Hobby Shop

Right out of the box, I’d have to say that there has been tremendous fluctuation in the fate of hobby shops around the world. Covid, all that. Mark Your Calendar Home handy-bastard festival note coming up:  National Retail Hobby Shops Association has a big convention set for from Sept 11-14 in Lost Wages.  See here … Read More

Crash and Depression Weather

Economics is much like meteorology, we reckon. Today’s report is as much for me (personally) as it is for subscribers as we line up the “match points” between the Great Depression and what’s evolving. Rather interesting exercise to try next time you can’t sleep and it’s 2 AM.  Really ought to try it.  Many have … Read More

Inflation Numbers: Bad, But… Buy a Sharpie Time

Our Daily News-to-Use Consumer Tips first. Amazon has a 47% off deal today on broad (chisel tip) black Sharpies.  Four pack under $5 bucks. Why? We get the odd box from Amazon and elsewhere around here.  So we have taken (when not burning trash) (burn ban is about due, thanks to fire risk out here in … Read More

Will the Market Forecast the Fed? Many ATR Notes

Feel like you need a dose of Breaking News? The latest new unemployment claims chart will have to hold you. That and a reminder the early futures were pointing to a solidly higher open. RSS as Modern Tea Leaves Wondering what the Fed decision will be – and more importantly how it will be received by … Read More

Thinking Over “Detirement”

This is really a report on faddish Accounting, because it drives so much else. Including retirement. Or, given there is a shortage of workers in the country, de-retirement. Jacob Soll’s book The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Rise and Fall of Nations provided some of the impetus for the ideas herein. Soll’s  next book, Free … Read More

Riding the “Right Wave” – Int’l Trade Figs

A fellow seeker of the “right path” took me to task overnight for the Monday column opening.  Where I wrote “There’s not a hell of a lot to yammer about this morning….” In which he pointed out that Evil is everywhere these days, a Drooler is coming for our guns (and seems fixated on 9 … Read More

Next Week the Fed – Heat’s on – Lost Tool Quest

There’s not a hell of a lot to yammer about this morning.  So let’s! We could talk about real estate changing hands in eastern Ukraine I suppose: Russia-Ukraine war: Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk being ‘levelled’, says Luhansk governor, as Russian shelling intensifies.  Real estate values seem to be dropping? Or, we could talk about the Israelis … Read More

ShopTalk Sunday: Second Depression Fix-It Shops?

Play before Work, I always say. (But never actually do.) Where is the Welder Review??? There’s a “dog ate my welder” story in here… Today was scheduled to be a review of that Chineseum knock-off of the Smith Little Torch.  That one retails on the Zon for (take a look).  While the Chineseum was under $25-bucks – … Read More

Advice from Captain Gooding

Two parts to this morning’s report.  First, the non-mathematical reason why economic depression is semi-inevitable.  Stay tuned. It follows-on from wild price appreciation coming to virtually everything this fall. After the “theory class” we hear from a long-time source – who has taken on a new nom de plume (moniker) although at the same rank).  … Read More

Biden’s Three-War Monte, Side of Guns, Drought, Collapse

Let’s see how well we can summarize what has been an ugly political opera this week remembering that old Joe South song from my rock ‘n roll pass: Games People Play. Three-War Monte is the aware person’s war metaphor for the old carnie game: “…also known as Find the Lady and Three-card Trick – is a confidence game in which the victims, … Read More