Full agenda today so here’s the snapshot.  

And Now Here’s Your Host: Wild George

Pretend today I’m a “shock jock” – And you just tuned in to the Wild George Sez show. One of the few remaining English-language, non-thumping programs left on AM radio…

He reads the headlines:

“Challenger Job Cuts report is just out.  But where next is possibly short-term Up according to a new trading model previewed on the Wild George Sez subscriber side. (Peoplenomics.com in the old world.)

“And in addition to getting rid of ads on Urban (for now – see yesterday’s Publisher Note here) we are following through on the warning from last fall.

Which was – at 77 – there is less (pardon this) f*ck-around time, so we are not wasting effort.  That’s a young person (and fool’s) game.”

So far, this Wild George Sez episode is “calling the ball.”  So you listen more closely…

Job Cuts and Markets

No one has a working “market decoder ring” – so far as we know (no one has shared it with us – of that you may be certain!) – but our current knack says a move higher from here is possible.  In other words, we could very well be at the end of a “sell the rumor” which might be followed with a “buy the news” cycle.

We actually laid it out on the Peoplenomics subscriber side Wednesday – more on that in a second.  First thing today is eyeballs on the Challenger Job Cuts report.

It was headlined as “Feb 05 Challenger Report: January Job Cuts Surge; Lowest January Hiring on Record.”

“U.S.-based employers announced 108,435 job cuts in January, an increase of 118% from the 49,795 cuts announced in the same month last year. It is up 205% from the 35,553 job cuts announced in December, according to a report released Thursday from global outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

January’s total is the highest for the month since 2009, when 241,749 job cuts were announced. It is the highest monthly total since October 2025, when 153,074 cuts were recorded.

“Generally, we see a high number of job cuts in the first quarter, but this is a high total for January. It means most of these plans were set at the end of 2025, signaling employers are less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026,” said Andy Challenger, workplace expert and chief revenue officer for Challenger, Gray & Christmas.”

This is likely to be used as political ammo in the mid-terms later this year. But there is an odd whiff to it that deserves a quick drill-down.

“Hide the Sausage? No – Hide Jobs Data!“

Tomorrow the Federal Jobs numbers were scheduled.  But (thanks to a two-party conspiracy to rule and prevent third parties which would fracture the duopoly lock) one way of controlling the population is by removing certainty.  Which is why there was no JOLTS report Tuesday.

My AI stack (yeah, I am a user of silicon brainpower) laid it out this DB (duopoly BOHICA) this way:

“Because of the current partial federal government shutdown, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will not release the regular monthly employment (jobs) report on its usual schedule this Friday, and it has been delayed until federal funding is restored; a new release date (such as February 11) has been set as the shutdown’s effects on staffing and data processing are resolved. “

If you think this is total horseshit, take a number.  Though, please understand I’m old enough to remember when politicians feared the wrath of the People.  Which in  scattered places have become The People fearing the wrath of the government.

Other times, they just “shut ‘er down” – still paying a class of government workers not to work (Fraud!) – while pretending to be keeping their contract with the public.

No. They are not.”

EXCEPTION? Exclusive | Trump Administration to Make It Easier to Fire 50,000 Federal Workers – WSJ

[click.  That short-lived radio show  – the Wild George Sez – has been turned off for violating sweeping new pronoun and thought-control mandates which are softly enforced by cooperating corporate social and media controllers.]  (Whew!  Which planet was this, again?)

Explains a market nosebleed at the open, and maybe a turnaround Friday.  That’s when a “It feels so good when they stop beating me” rally might arrive.

The Lindbergh Replay Lands

Long wave economic cycles are very useful things.  Two decades ago (when I could still remember grad school cycles work) I announced that “One of the major timing markers in secular news coverage would be a replay of the Lindbergh kidnapping case of 1934.

The Modern Rhyme, which we forecast 20-years ago, is here. For details of the present-day, national attention-getting, go read Scoop: FBI chief ready to head to Tucson as Trump pledges help to find Guthrie’s mom and click back.

The Lindbergh kidnapping exploded into national consciousness during the depths of the Great Depression because it fused three powerful forces at once: economic despair, mass media amplification, and the symbolic shattering of a “protected” American family. Charles Lindbergh was not just a man — he was an icon of competence and national pride. When his child was taken, the story became a proxy for a broader loss of control felt by millions of Americans watching banks fail, jobs disappear, and institutions prove unable to protect even their most celebrated citizens.

The Guthrie case follows the same pattern. It isn’t just a kidnapping; it’s a narrative vessel for a public already primed by long-wave stress — inflation, distrust of institutions, political fracture, and economic anxiety. In both eras, the crime itself mattered less than what it represented: the sense that order was slipping, that no one was truly insulated anymore, and that the social contract was quietly breaking. That’s why these stories erupt when they do — not randomly, but as cultural markers that the long cycle has turned and fear has gone mainstream again.

Now let’s talk dates.

The Lindbergh kidnapping unfolded in early 1932 and wasn’t fully resolved until 1936, spanning roughly four years from crime to legal closure, right through the darkest middle stretch of the Great Depression.

That matters, because these high-attention crimes don’t resolve quickly when they rhyme with long-wave stress; they linger, mutate, and stay in the public mind as the economy grinds through its own adjustment.

If the Guthrie case is a modern echo — not identical, but adjacent — then it suggests we may be looking at a multi-year social and economic digestion ahead, not a quick news-cycle blip. In other words, the calendar may be whispering that this phase has just begun, not that it’s about to wrap up.

Still, the cyclical nature of economics, news, social herd effects, and more, are only guidance.  It doesn’t mean we are specifically at the 1932 analog. It’s simply a temporal marker of the times we’re in.

Still, (Wild George) is walking his talk.  Because of my grand service to Reality efforts, one of the next features to be along ought to be mass hunger.

Yes, because just like the Lindbergh case was a temporal marker for “regular folk” the next marker was well covered in the book The Hungry Years, which you can get on Amazon.

That, as the late Paul Harvey would say,  “is the REST of the story.”

[Except for why George is focused now on his https://Houradaygardening.com website.]

One literary note: The defining book is the T.H. Watkins (hardcover, not on Kindle) but there is a book titled The Hungry Years, as well. That one is on Kindle.

(To attacking critics:  I am making a conditional forecast, not a dated one.  I am saying that 1) If this cycle is rhyming… and 2) If these markers are present… and 3) Then this class of outcomes tends to follow.  That’s structural prediction, not calendar prediction. Completely legitimate. Pound sand.)

And Now the News

SS-DD.  (Same Stuff, Different Day)

Iran war is off for a week while the aircraft carrier Bush steams toward Israel and/or Suez.  So expect another week of “Let’s pretend peace is still possible” The Uncertain Path Forward for Iran | TIME.  Talks today – nickel on the side says nothing or nothing substantive.  Maybe enough to slow the market free-fall?

Taiwan isn’t on eBay but it is in China’s sights.  So tea leaf inspectors should slow down for China’s Xi Presses Trump on Taiwan in Phone Call – The New York Times

Domestic discontinuities remain a fixture. Poll: Most Americans say ICE has ‘gone too far’ in immigration enforcement : NPR (But note the source, please.)

Still, Homan: US pulling 700 immigration agents from MN but that will depend on local behavior. We still aren’t clear how a governor can say his state is at war with the central government and still be free.  Wait – maybe insurrections are ok with the right packaging now?

Around the Ranch:  Digital Arrogance

Living out in the woods would not be possible without Elon Musk – Starlink.

The reasons just today?

• Centurylink is no longer downloading email over Starlink.
• Can’t get help from CenturyLate because my provider is now BrightSpeed.
• And Brightspeed isn’t open yet.
• And THEY don’t mail my hardcopy bill until days and days after electronically saying my “bill is ready.”
• The Electronic Arrogance  screed holds that even if I pay the bill exactly the next mail day after I get it, by mailing in a check, they can still foist late charges on me. Slow mail is costing me big time.  But is a week to get 300 miles slow? Oh, boy.  Big can-o-worms there!
• And then there’s the multiple vendors who want to “Text me a code” which is another pant-load.  Because we DON’T GET CELL COVERAGE HERE.

So, when YOU think about going to the woods to step aside (in Billy Jack) style from the modern mania, just remember to pack extra Tums and adult personal lubricant.

Then there’s embedded digital arrogance with those printer pricks who put anti recycling chips in their shit.  Them and the horse they rode in on, if you follow.

Write when sanity returns,

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