News

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of this morning’s two job reports (ADP and Challenger), I think there’s some dandy prepping advice to be had in a read of Jamie Dimon says ‘brace yourself’ for an economic hurricane caused by the Fed and Ukraine war. This entire attempt – at skipping a Depression – … Read More

Ever since December 2021, when we began advising it was time to learn gardening, conditions have been building toward Depression before 2023.  Even our moderate case for economic calamity, though, has gained strength as the modern Fed – while avoiding the same mistake of the 1929 Fed – has also mis-stepped and made up new … Read More

We have the latest Case Shiller/S&P/CoreLogic housing data just out:  Headline is a 20.6 percent annual home price gain which is super inflationary: YEAR-OVER-YEAR The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 20.6% annual gain in March, up from 20.0% in the previous month. The … Read More