Every morning – when you’ve chased news around for half a century or more – there’s a moment of reflection.  Comes after the first pass through headlines.  You get a general idea where things are going. In subsequent passes, you’ll get to the prioritization, quippish angles, innovation (enterprising) additional fact-finding and all that. The first pass is … Read More

Things are nearly back to normal here in the Outback.  After a wild lightning storm this week which set me back about 2-kilobocks, in repair/replacement costs, we have all the parts needed for repair. From here, things should go well and there’s cool weather ahead. One of Elaine’s boys (quickly approaching retirement himself) will be … Read More

OK – a few internet issues. But the big problem to consider this weekend is a major market break.  For this, we have our usual 18-charts in our ChartPack series. These are useful because they are not “single index” measurements.  Because, as we learned from the Internet Bubble bursting back in 2000-2003, letting financial shills … Read More

$77-billion from disaster?  The Treasury reports today’s U.S. public debt to the penny at $34,923,277,120,226.95. As you look around, appreciate that’s a lot of free lunch.  But for whom? Not us… Cyber Crap Microsoft outage linked to Crowdstrike leads to global computer outage, Although, more useful is How To Fix CrowdStrike Issue Causing Blue Screen Of … Read More

This morning’s column comes to you from the recording studio out here in the woods. Because we had one hell of a lightning storm last night.  It was better than (as a kid) hearing the story of Rip van Winkle and the giants playing ten pins in the skies over the Catskills. It was classic. … Read More

Between multiple forward-looking predictions, we now have (we think) enough data about the future to make some educated guesses. We will begin with some of the biblical references and concepts, move into how “personal contact with Future looks” and then use a couple of emails from colleagues to illustrate how possible futures “wander by” our … Read More

No change in Retail Sales this month overall.  But been a hard time down at the car store… “Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for June 2024, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $704.3 billion, virtually unchanged (±0.5 percent)* from the previous month, … Read More

We have mentioned the “Ides of July” to you several times in the past month and this morning “We are there.”  Indeed, the world has changed with the attempt on Donald Trump’s life over the weekend. While we could “go deep” on the all too obvious failure of the Secret Service to pre-emptively terminate the … Read More

Our ShopTalk column today will be somewhat muted, following the attempt on former president Donald Trump’s life in Pennsylvania Saturday.  There are three – serious – non-shop discussions to have, first. 1. G.A. Stewart’s Nostradamus work nailed it. Not only did Stu post “Scary Close” (for this high-intensity, here comes the crap) period just a … Read More

Until the bad news about this fall begins to dawn on the (stupid) public, this market might move higher still.  In fact, as we reported Wednesday, another 10-14 percent is not off the table. This being the weekend, we focus only on a few headlines and the ChartPack., But today, even after the hiccup Thursday, … Read More

Let’s see how that charitable Mainstream Media is treating Flow Joe (who’s going to go) this fine summers morning: Biden news conference carries high stakes as campaign teeters (cnbc.com) Biden introduces Ukraine’s Zelensky as ‘President Putin’ in latest brutal gaffe (nypost.com) Highlights from President Biden’s solo news conference | AP News Not nearly as much … Read More

When the markets hit their latest (*Absurd) high at the close Wednesday, I put a little dough from the “hamburger fund” on the short side expecting a lower open. Two-and-a-half hours to the open, the wager looked to pay off with a 0.4 percent gain for less than an hour of (open) market exposure. The … Read More

My latest book, published on Kindle and titled “The 100-Year Toaster” argues the world doesn’t have a population crisis.  We have a quality crisis.  Wrapped up in the book is an explanation of how shoddy goods are bad for the planet but great for the corporations who run the place. Yes, population concerns may be … Read More