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 we have worried, that’s giving China an opening.  US action in Venezuela gives China much to ponder – especially on Taiwan.  Of course, Trump and international allies say “tell us it ain’t so!” Trump says Venezuela does not give China a Taiwan precedent, but ‘it’s up to’ Xi  Which reveals a great deal, we think.

In the “developer mindset” world, Venezuela is a “deal” and the hints point to “follow-ons.” But no doubt, a huge supply of oil, tons of strategic minerals and “field position” on an unaligned continent? Seems to us Trump’s deal is better.

Risky? Sure.  But we think Xi will hold – for now.  We’re not done imploding, yet.

Jobs Roll

ADP numbers this week set up “weak hiring” as the scaffolding.  But the Challenger layoffs were less scary.  Which is why ahead of the data, markets were in a holding pattern.

Then came the data:

“Both total nonfarm payroll employment (+50,000) and the unemployment rate (4.4 percent) changed little in December, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment continued to trend up in food services and drinking places, health care, and social assistance. Retail trade lost jobs.”

The CES Birth-Death model took off 46,000 jobs, so it wasn’t bad per se. Big multiyear peraspective?

Were it not for domestic upheaval and distractions, we could have a blow-off rally underway. Gold and Silver might be simply front-running necessary monetary inflation to paper-us-through this latest flurry of crisis.

After the numbers, futures bounced a bit higher.

Another ICE Shooting

This one will be even harder for liberal click-farmers to scream about:  ICE agents wounded two in Portland in a traffic stop.  The vehicle involved held two connected to a Venezuelan prostitution (and whatever) ring.  Domestic terror types.

A few more details can be found in a study of After Minneapolis, federal agents shoot married couple in Portland; DHS claims ‘Venezuelan migrants’ had gang links. But the short version is, you didn’t know them, neither did I. But the first lesson (“don’t try to run over ICE agents”) should be pretty clear.

Less obvious is this isn’t Trump militarizing the country.  He’s overseeing enforcement of the laws of the land.  Democrats are trying to make a big deal – with situational ethics being placed ahead of legality at many turns.

The haunting part of all this is a vision we have considered on the Peoplenomics side of the house – and it was one of our “deal points” for moving out of dense rural areas more than 20-years ago.  Because that’s where “The Partisans” will scrap for ownership of the future.

Shootings to Fuel City-State Divide?

City-states are not a novelty. Go back and thumb through some history: they’re the default unit of political organization across history. Athens, Sparta, Venice, Florence, the Hanseatic ports — all arose when central authority weakened, trade concentrated locally, and civic identity mattered more than imperial banners.

Empires absorb city-states when systems scale. City-states re-emerge when they don’t. In the Fall of Rome a good measure of collapse was how far you needed to travel from Rome to avoid chaos.  That’s why we’re cherry-picking tech to cobble up low energy, high-efficiency sustainability.

The American republic began closer to a loose federation of city-states with hinterlands than a monolithic nation. Strong centralization is the historical exception, not the rule. Mechanized agriculture drove, but the Great Depression was a decade plus counterflow.

What Changes in the Digital Era

The modern twist is technology. A contemporary city-state doesn’t need formal secession, standing armies, or even clear borders.

It needs:

• Local control of regulation
• Independent revenue mechanisms
• Its own data and financial rails
• Narrative legitimacy

When cities begin selectively enforcing federal law, aligning with private capital instead of national institutions, and building parallel systems for policing, welfare, and commerce, autonomy emerges by habit — not proclamation.  Not seeing it?  How many agencies can do traffic stops nowadays? Residency starts to matter more than citizenship. Metro identity matters more than state lines.

Could we be headed to a time when “Blue or red determines who is dead? The odds of such a future are not zero.  Seems to us the race is between local fiefdoms and international resource warfare. Your view may vary.

Why Violence Accelerates the Split

Sustained unrest rewires loyalty. People stop asking whether something is legal and start asking whether it’s “ours.” Once that shift occurs, federal authority becomes abstract while local authority becomes immediate.  That’s the moment city-states are reborn — quietly.

Shootings don’t cause fragmentation by themselves. But they accelerate existing fractures by forcing everyone to choose sides: law versus narrative, order versus optics, system versus tribe.

The Risk Point is Now

The danger isn’t formal secession. It’s de facto autonomy. Cities operating under their own interpretations of national law. States posturing against Washington. Federal power applied unevenly. Inequality in all its many forms.

History suggests once that equilibrium shifts begin – and this could be the present case – , reunification usually requires crisis — not consensus.  Democrats – in their lust to remove Trump – and all other views at variance with the letter of the law they disagree with – are spoiling for a fight. Tim Walz said so with his war talk.

Which brings us back to the woods. Markets may be rising. Deals may be cutting. But beneath it all, the real contest isn’t over oil, gold, or jobs. It’s over who governs where — and for whom — when systems stop scaling.

The problem echoes my book Downsizing: Missing the Collapse of Empire.  When a growth-required system stops growing, shit hits the fan sooner than later.

Has CWL – Civil War Lite – Started?

Have a look at today’s NY Post:  Exclusive | Here’s who’s really behind the Minneapolis ICE resistance movement/

According to the Post article:

“In addition to Indivisible Twin Cities — which does not identify its leaders on its website — other protest leaders include the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an anti-Israel group whose Minnesota chapter’s executive director Jaylani Hussein has rallied against ICE at protests.”

What’s being sketched in by events and actions is a “front line of CWL” which will be street-centered in the USA but which will incorporate the divisions in Gaza, Tehran, and even now Venezuela.

That’s the high-level view.  One we assumed 20-years ago would happen because polarization didn’t happen overnight. Imperialism overplayed its hand in an unpopular SE Asia war decades back. But the pendulum over events (toward workable centrism) hasn’t been allowed to settle.

Rather than agreeing on “equality and excellence” the pendulum has been hijacked with various flavors of “specialness.”

A real “tell” may be how China handles current events.  America doesn’t want a Chinese-style surveillance and social-credit State. But absent a Taiwan invasion, Xi might have a sales pitch as the Chinese play the “Grownups in the room” hand.

The Urban Survival plan we came up with has been Plan, Plant, Pray, and Reload.  Ya’ll start the wars without us.

Around the Ranch: Sick Day?

Boy, that was dumb. But a dandy exploration of why there is so much risk ahead if America goes “over the edge” as we’re on course for.

We had a great dinner out with friends Monday.  Tuesday I worked my butt off on outdoor projects. One of which was making a ton of mulch for the new Food Reactor II project been working on over on the Peoplenomics side.

To make mulch, you drive through huge piles of oak leaves and pine straw with the riding mower.  Messy?  Yes. But I wore a mask so should have been fine.  Except, I then moved around building materials and while doing that, took a whack at tall weeds on the shooting range and around the greenhouse.

No mask – and that was the stupid part. Yeah, I do that sometimes.

As a result, Wednesday I had a classic asthma attack.  Fluid in bronchial area  but not out into the lungs.  A quick consult with firefighter/EMT/server farm medical whiz G2 and he lined out some ideas.

My solution?  Albuterol, QVAR (a bronchial steroid), no wheat, no booze, 8000 of D +k2, lots of zinc, and even a (shh!!!) ivermectin – just in case – I will do the testing today.  Quick text and my doc called in the QVAR refill. And at bedtime, half a benadryl in case there was an allergy component.   Triple clean of the CPAP mask and a new filter.

Today?  90 percent better – but I will test and get the QVAR.

OK – what does this have to do with economics, city-states, civil war lite talk (Walz) and a constellation of power-seekers aligning to attack the world order?

Just this:  Right now – everything works.  The doc was at work, the son’s phone was answered, the QVAR will be in today and COVID-19 tests are readily available and we have a stack of iver-you-know.

BUT here’s the risk and the lesson:  I know it’s stylish for young people with their (bullshit) identity politics to go ramp up “emotional outrage” but out here at 77, it wears thin and looks pretty stupid.

There are only three values needed to avoid collapse here on Babel II.  hard work, absolute equality, and a David Goggins-like dedication to excellence at any cost.

I’m going to take a “partial day off” today. Load up on sleep and get over this.  But what I’m really thinking about?  How many people will be lost due to failing systems in the event of a civil war lite?

Hucksters yammer about revolution like they are no big deal.  But they ARE.  There are human price tags that come with systemic failure that kill as many noncombatants as the front line Molotov hurlers.

There is an older class of folks who won’t stand for misbehaving children.  And while we won’t make specific threats, do remember that an inheritance only works if the banks are open and the power’s on.  Kids tend to forget their Inheritance is the future.  And petulant squandering isn’t a winning play.

Write when you get sane,

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