ShopTalk Sunday: The Quest for “Happy Designs”

Our major shop projects are on hold.  A combination of weather delays (Ure doesn’t work outdoors under 50F if he can avoid it) and supply chain issues.  The local lair of the Home Despots was out of the polycarbonate panel mounting strips for the Studio Grow Room.  So, we await deliveries and a change in … Read More

Charts Are Warning Again

With a holiday weekend, we pause to consider our market charts, These show a most worrisome pattern and a critical level has been broken. Which we will get into after only a few preliminary remarks. More for Subscribers ||| Missing out?  SUBSCRIBE NOW!!! ||| Subscriber Help Center

Crash Alert (Not Doom Porn: BUT It’s Time to Worry)

Breaking:  Retail Craters Axiomatically:  Everything’s a Business Model.  Including America. Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for December 2021, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $626.8 billion, a decrease of 1.9 percent (±0.5 percent) from the previous month, but 16.9 percent (±0.9 percent) … Read More

Social Cohesion Breaks, NATO Tweaks, plus PPI

A familiar theme around here is the idea that social cohesion is failing.  We see it as the direct result of “social media fractures” which are in the process of mortally wounding America.  Plus, several other countries, as well. Social Cohesion is also laid at the feet of government:  They continuously make the error of … Read More

Roadmap to the New Inflation

Despite the Fed boss ramble Tuesday, our pessimism grows.  That’s because scattered food shortages are being reported in the Northeast as grocery shelves “thin out.” Going beyond pet food, there’s a hit that the supply chain issues will not resolve quickly this time.  Since the Brandon administration has gotten almost everything wrong so far, no … Read More

Inflation’s Getting Outed – Fed Dance Begins

Reader Note:  Added estimated reading time (@275 wpm) to the top of posts.  Reading time doesn’t include comments.  Can add, tho, if anyone gives a rip… Inflation is about to rip everybody a new one.  If you haven’t been shopping lately, that is. I assume you know – as was true back during Jerry Ford’s Whip … Read More

Click Baiting Ukraine and AI – Powell on Deck Tuesday

Adventures in Data:  Let’s begin with a couple of “news searches” on a reliable interface to the Google platform.  Like DuckDuckGo. We notice an odd thing when comes to “reposting news” and thereby finding monetization of “hot” button stories. Do the simple search like [Ukraine] today and we see three of the stories are reposts … Read More

ShopTalk Sunday: Rain Tests, Shop Sound Systems

A third of the way into January, the rains have returned to Texas.  Those couple of weeks rounding-out December, were nothing more than sucker-punches for the unwary. From the outside project table, under the off-square rannygaboo (Americanized from the more proper rannygazoo) rain cover, there were projects lined up as far are the eye could … Read More

Climate? VLSR is the Answer

A quarter century back, I committed to an “ethical lifestyle.”  Today, an update on its progress and evolution.  (Voluntary Lifestyle Reduction.) However, first, we need to roll through some (additional, foolish) sheep fodder.  Fed people – dumbed-down folks – who don’t have the brains God gave chickens.  Or, they would have figured out there is … Read More

Job Miss Questions, Covid Questions

As we so frequently do, we continue to ask awkward questions about some of the data behind (what passes for) news stories. Let’s begin with the Jobs report, more properly the Employment Situation Report issued monthly by Labor.  Today’s helping looks like this: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 199,000 in December, and the unemployment … Read More

Data, Elliott Was Right, Bounce Day, Sourdough Research

Challenger Job Cut report, International Tradewreck, and Weakly U.I. filings top the start of “Bounce Day.” Before we get started – and with a hat-tip to Robin Handler of the Options Signal Service for calling the “big changes Jan. 5” right – let’s roll out the fresh data du jour for you: Challenger Job Cuts These … Read More

The Kind of Interview that Matters

We usually keep our nose on the “economics and wise-spending” grindstone.  But, now and then, the Larger Contexts of Life deserve a glance.  Markets will break higher – or lower – but no point on worrying about that, just yet. So today off to the Land of Woo-Woo.  An interview with Martin Keller.  Whose book … Read More

Crash Time Reset, Notes, and Woo-Woo

This is really one for our Peoplenomics.com subscribers, as we have something of a “chart problem” to sift through going into the week’s end. Big Picture First: At the Macro Level, the old all-time high in our Aggregate Index (of multiple stock indices) hit a new all-time high at the Tuesday close: 41,995.20. The previous all-time … Read More