America hasn’t become the Duchy of Grand Fenwick overnight. We’re not there yet, and we probably can’t get there for another five or ten years. But the uncomfortable truth is that American hegemony, both financial and cultural, is now openly negotiable. Silver topped $90 overnight. A reserve currency doesn’t lose leadership because another nation makes … Read More

No, actually, the tariffs-as-taxes debate will go on long after my passing, yours, or the pyramids. Sure, it sounded like “free money.”  But usually, where there’s “free money” there’s also fine print. And the tab comes later. Take the inflation figures just out: “The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.3 percent … Read More

Markets are in sell-off mode ahead of today’s opening for a simple reason. You’ll need a scorecard to separate signal from noise. So, let’s line ’em up, shall we? Trump vs. Powell Began developing Friday when the Fed was served subpoenas over – at least ostensibly – the $2.3 billion renovation plans for Fed buildings.  … Read More

No, not a typo… I didn’t quite get around to the deck completion this week because of a bout of chest cold and asthma – not my idea of fun.  And then, as I was creeping out of the crud, it was cold and rainy weather. Since I know the boss around here, I told … Read More

A few thoughts this morning extending the research from Friday on the odds of a Civil War Lite (CWL) riff from the Minnesota outrage this week. As usual, we keep the “systems hat” on. But even for the public, the simple taekout from Friday was “As long as stocks are going up, Walz and company … Read More

Friday of last week, our Aggregate Index opened the New Year at 59,510.42. Going into today’s open (based on Thursday’s close) we notched 60,243.55.  That’s a gain of 1.23 percent in a single week. I don’t know about your life.  But there was nothing impressive noted out here in the woods.  We seized Venezuela, but as … Read More

We return to the post-holiday, time to get back to normal – whatever that was.  But, at least the weather looks good here… Tainter’s Marginal Rate of Return Problem Seen through Tainter’s lens, mass migration, institutional sprawl, and geopolitical chest-thumping are not separate stories — they’re all symptoms of a system burning energy to preserve complexity after … Read More

Subtitle: How a Mouse Wheel glitch on a brand new mouse – plus the insult of having to “get a confirmation code” to take delivery of food we’d already paid for – combine to present a distasteful and inescapable conclusion. We are becoming the digital-spin off the Anasazi.  Which, you (ought to) remember as one … Read More

Dinner out with friends last night didn’t help Elaine or me to clarify our worldview.  Our dinner companions are just as unsure about the latest change in “American Dynamics” as are we when it comes to swiping the head of Venezuela and “perp-walking” him and his wife. As a dynamic systems integrator in my thinking, I’m … Read More

Yes, silver and gold are back, and Bitcoin is trying to elbow back into the limelight. But even with the market’s putting on something of a Show Rally in the early futures trade, don’t plan on “doubling the payroll” on this one. The short version?  This is Jobs Week.  What that means, pure and simple, … Read More

Wherein we nail the art of getting hammered.  So to speak. Last time we talked about the Deck it was mainly in “engineering” and “time management” and that kind of falderall.  But now, we get into the next 2-1/2 hours of the project. After the 63-minutes, of whatever it was (previous episode) the actual building  part was supposed … Read More

Most people consume news the way they consume caffeine: a quick jolt, a shallow reaction, and then they move on. Peoplenomics is built for people who want something different — a way to understand why events cluster, when risk shifts, and how long cycles quietly shape markets, politics, and even war. This week’s Peoplenomics report … Read More

OK, Gunslinger:  Ready? Historically, the Friday after Christmas tends to participate in the tail end of the Santa Claus Rally window, often showing light volume and a mild upward bias, driven more by thin liquidity than conviction. The last five trading days of the year plus the first two of January have been positive roughly … Read More