Prepping: Metal Detecting 101

In Saturday’s column I hinted that I would wade a little deeper into the idea of “hobbies that can make money” for you…and by the title, you ought to know where this one is going. For the gold! Bit of personal background:  When I lived in the PNW – and even when I was on … Read More

Markets: Trump on Way Out?

This is one of those columns it sickens me to write.  But, since we believe our approach to be data-driven, there are some elements in news headlines and in the technical formation of the market that offer the prospect of a presidential departure and succession in the near future. Mid-2019? This morning, we scrap our … Read More

Prepping: Depression-Proof Hobbies

It’s the time of year when we should spend some time focusing on the important things in life…like having fun!!!  Christmas is coming, but what is the “right” kind of present? The theory is that people need “time to re-create.”  So, the notion of “re-creation” which drops the hyphen to become recreation. Since a lot … Read More

Markets: Hanging on Jobs and Trade

Reminder:  Today is the last day of Medicare Open Enrollment. As expected, stock market action was swinging wildly Thursday for multiple reasons, depending on which channel you happened to be watching: Some thought it was because of uncertainty over the Jobs report.  But, since that’s just out today, we can review it for surprises right … Read More

Markets: Black Thursday, Anyone? Gray?

Hopefully not, but those of us who prefer the “short side” of trading were looking at the early futures today and wondering if we’re not getting closer to a dramatic replay of 1929.  A couple of charts will explain the problem: As you can see here, when we line up the October 3 peak in … Read More

Strange Alternative Methods

Since the market blew down almost 800 points yesterday, we’ll begin this morning with an update of our “1929 Replay” chart.  As you’ll see, although we canceled our “December Crash Alert” that doesn’t mean we are completely out of the woods, yet. Then we’ll roll through the charts where you’ll see where we could be … Read More

Prepping: The “Go-Everywhere Box”

There we were, Sunday morning…just gorged on French toast and coffee. My consigliere announced he wanted to take a hike down to the bottom of the hill and back.  And as we were discussing the wilds of East Texas, he got out his “Goes Everywhere Box.” “See This?  Everything I need is in here…” He … Read More

Tomorrow’s Mourning: Overdone?

The “pop-up” day of mourning for departed President George H.W. Bush provides us an opportunity to ask a few very pertinent questions. Tomorrow, as you’ve heard, the stock and bond markets will take a day off.  And, as the Augusta Chronicle headlines “Post offices to be closed Wednesday for day of mourning for George H.W. … Read More

FCPA: How Robert Mueller Might Nail Trump

Yes, the markets will melt up in the early going – maybe 500 points on the Dow – but there’s another story that we are looking at that could have more impact than a “rally with an air foundation” which is how we read the time-out on trade tariffs…. As our Peoplenomics.com subscribers know, we’ve been … Read More

Coping: UrbanSurvival’s 2018 Book List (Part 1)

Today, I wanted to go through some of the books that I have read this year or which are still on my reading list.  People ask “What do you read? My thinking  has always been that if you are going to be an interesting writer, you need to read extensively across a broad number of … Read More

Quakes, Passings, and the G20

There are a lot of very interesting news items this morning.  We’ll cover most in short summary form since a pages-long treatment of each gets boring.  Its also useless in terms of payback on time invested. In keeping with the “excess bandwidth” discussion on UrbanSurvival Friday, we note already the passing of former president George … Read More

Prepping: Sustainable Relocation

Having a guest here this week has been most instructive.  Since our guest is a tax attorney, not to mention an extra class ham radio operator, and a genuine expert on the economic longwaves, it’s great to have a “fellow traveler” to this place to kick things around with.  Thinks like “the future” and where … Read More

WW3, Trump Stew, and “So What?”

It may be worth watching the news several times this weekend because the world is going into “Turn on the Blender Mode.” At the macro level, there is a meeting of the G20 in Argentina.  There’s more, but the top of the Wikipedia entry on point begins with… The G20 (or Group of Twenty) is … Read More