Power, Prices, and Preparedness: Three talking points with the hash browns:
- What Trump said in Greenland, what it means, and how he’s out on the margins now.
- Markets slammed through the 85-Day average to the downside. This is likely the rally above before lower.
- And the Mainstream again underscores its failure to empower the people it serves as a major winter storm is set to dominate the weekend. To help, we’ll do a pre-storm walk-through to line out some workflow for you.
Now, this is the sandwich-bag sized view of the world. Now let’s back up the trucks to it.
Trump-WEF Through the Rearview
Took a plane swap to get there, but here’s the simmer-down on DJT at WEF:
“The headline-grabber was Greenland. Trump revived the idea that the U.S. should acquire it—casting it as strategic and geographically “ours” in a North American sense—while also insisting he wouldn’t use force to do it. He used that theme to signal a broader worldview: hard-nosed bargaining, territorial/strategic leverage, and pressure on allies he believes benefit disproportionately from U.S. security guarantees.
He also took swings at other leaders—most notably needling Canada and Mark Carney—portraying neighbors and allies as dependent on U.S. power and, therefore, obligated to show more “gratitude.” The overall tone mixed policy with provocation: a promise of U.S. economic dynamism paired with sharper nationalist rhetoric that played well domestically but landed as confrontational in Davos’s multilateral setting.”
Canada is economically a U.S. dependency, whether they will admit it, or not. If we blocked cross-border trade, care to guess which country would “keep-on keeping on?”
A Second Take: Long-time reader Andy called it right in his comment overnight:
“What President Trump just said to all the wealthy power elite was,
“At any given moment, without notification any of you here can be removed from the world stage. your acting contract will be rendered null and void. we will appropriate your wealth and distribute it as we see fit. Not you or anyone else can stop this from happening.”
Then he gave them an example and smiled.
“Whether you support Trump or not, you have to know that no other President of the United States (not even Camelot Kennedy) has ever had the Balls to look the Power Elite in the face and say, your high castle and nobody else will protect you from us then smile.”
Where Trump confuses many critics is in his flips from the short game to the long. He does flips – often 180 – like today’s: Trump Drops Tariff Threats Over Greenland After Meeting With NATO Chief – The New York Times. While the gleeful bug-peddlers spend the morning in their echo chamber, we know it likely means Trump has a “different medicine” in mind. Which fits with the BBC report What we know about Trump’s ‘framework of a future deal’ over Greenland.
Big picture: Within 20-years at the present rate of demographic change, Europe will be unrecognizable. We’ve read enough history to know more wars are won “in the sack” (by resulting birth rates) than on the battlefield. (Ask South Americans how Spanish came to their lands…)
And on the You’re a Pee’in Union? I wrote long ago this con was launched to “create new layers of government.” Eventually, control by the electorate is lost. What stands is the lesson: Bloatware is bad in compute and bad in government (in equal or greater measure).
A Trump Too Far?
Still, Trump worries us. A Zealot Developer on a Mission. As G.A. Stewart reminded in Comments today, there is lots to remember from the Resorts International debacle.
Here’s the Background/Read-in:
“Trump’s involvement in the Resorts International “debacle” (mid/late-1980s Atlantic City) was as a raider-turned-chairman who bought a controlling stake in Resorts International largely to get control of its unfinished Taj Mahal project. After James Crosby (key Resorts figure) died and the Taj Mahal ran into trouble, Trump moved in—buying control in 1987 and becoming chairman—promising to finish the Taj quickly.
The “debacle” label usually points to the high-profile corporate brawl that followed: Trump’s control position and deal structure (including a management/contract arrangement tied to the Taj Mahal) helped trigger a takeover fight when Merv Griffin later offered to buy Resorts. Griffin’s offer was conditioned on Trump agreeing to vote his special shares for a Griffin merger and to cancel Trump’s contract arrangement; Trump and Resorts’ special committee rejected that, and the Griffin vs. Trump contest for control became public and nasty.”
And speaking of next “resorts”? Exclusive | The U.S. Is Actively Seeking Regime Change in Cuba by the End of the Year – WSJ
Makes for interesting analysis of past moves. It’s something we hark back to as fresh headlines roll about how Trump may be pushing too hard: Memo tells ICE officers they can enter homes without a warrant | AP News.
The headline’s a bit misleading: Entry requires an administrative warrant and it’s a very narrow subset of cases. As Pappy used to school me (on how camel noses under tents works) “Rights are always taken first from those least able to defend them.”
Not today, but sometime down the road, this will land in a court of competent jurisdiction.
Breaking: GDP
The press release and a picture:
“Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 4.4 percent in the third quarter of 2025 (July, August, and September), according to the updated estimate released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 3.8 percent. The increase in real GDP in the third quarter reflected increases in consumer spending, exports, government spending, and investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased”
The Calm Before the Fed
Before the storm: Markets were up again this morning. Trump’s waffling is like oil on the waters of Wall Street. Gold and silver are “in bounds” for a day or three longer. And if we squint “just so” the expectation ramp to the Fed Decision next week suggests up today to mid-day Friday (varies between news models) then a small down and a Hopeful’s Rally before the Fed.
The CME FedWatch Tool (FedWatch – CME Group) calls a 95 percent chance of no change.
From there? We’re guessing (as it sure as hell ain’t advice) that when this Elliott a-b-c correction is over, we will be primed (from a wave 1 down and the pending 2 up completion) for a big kick-ass move down. The kind that could pop from a real surprise in the Chair’s remarks after the rate call itself. Stay tuned. (Vodka and rosaries handy, natch.)
Buried In the Noise
He’s back: Jack Smith testimony will warn Americans not to take the rule of law ‘for granted’
As Europe backs away from Trump’s “peace board” in Gaza, CBS News contributor among 3 journalists killed by Israel in Gaza. But please pay attention as Russia and the U.S. are becoming less divided over Ukraine and G.A. Stewart’s forward view to a “Shadow Caliphate” coming to Europe with Chinese backing (this is a huge deal, as we figure): Putin says Russia could send $1 billion in frozen U.S. assets to Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’. Things that make you go “Hmm…”
Squealers and Kneelers Dept: Prince Harry says U.K. tabloid court battle is “not just about me”.Oh, it’s not? (This is precisely the kind of skepticism our news analyst in royal Winnipeg hits the Maalox over.)
Last note: Here come the Musk challengers: Blue Origin to take on Starlink with ultra-high-speed satellite network. But, will it work with Alexa?
Special Winter ShopTalk: Weathering Reality
A Room-by-Room Risk Walk Before the Weather Walks In
They put up a winter storm watch for our area this week, and you can almost hear Texas start doing what Texas does: half the people shrug, half the people panic-buy bread and batteries, and the rest of us start quietly running a workflow.
Because here’s the thing. Storm prep isn’t “stock up.” Storm prep is all about reducing failure points before the clock runs out.
And the way you do that—if you’ve lived through enough busted pipes, frozen chemicals, and surprise power weirdness—isn’t by guessing. It’s by running a mental walk-through of the house like you’re the inspector and the insurance adjuster rolled into one.
I literally go room by room (and outbuildings, and porch, and shop), and I ask the same two questions:
- What can fail in this space if it hits 16°F?
- What’s the cheapest remediation I can do before it fails?
That’s the whole workflow. Simple. Repeatable. Calm. And it beats the pants off emergency improvisation at 2 a.m. in a flashlight beam.
(And yes—next Monday on Time-Engineering.com I’ll lay out the workflow structure behind this. Storm prep is one of the best “real world” examples of how workflows save your bacon.)
Today, here’s how the hit list looks at our place.
1) Comfort matters: food is morale and calories
I ordered a gluten-free bread mix because cold weather has a way of making everyone want “warm and real.” And who doesn’t like fresh bread when it’s nasty outside? Comfort food isn’t frivolous in a storm week—it’s a stabilizer. When the house feels like a cave, warm bread makes it feel like a home. People burn more energy when cold. I live the smell of “hot baked energy!”
2) Replace the little things before they become big things
I ordered a fresh 8-ounce can of PVC glue. Sounds ridiculous until you’ve spent a million years writing ShopTalk Sunday and learned the hard way: consumables age out. (Come to think of it, so do we…)
PVC cement is like dishwasher soap. You’re going to need it eventually. And when you need it, you need it right now, not after you discover the old can has turned into a brick.
Storm prep isn’t just about the storm. It’s about keeping the repair loop short when things break.
3) Screen porch lockers: liquids don’t love 16°F
On the screen porch we’ve got two lockers. One of them holds soaps, bleach, detergents—liquids that can freeze, split containers, or get weird and useless.
Sixteen degrees is sketchy territory, so those go on Elaine’s list and my list: they’ll move inside.
That’s the pattern: anything liquid that becomes a problem when it freezes? Bring it in. No debate.
4) Wine locker: hard liquor laughs, wine does not
Same deal with the wine locker. My hauling list. Hard liquors will be fine. That’s basically antifreeze with a label. (And no, I’m not advocating anything—just pointing out the physics or at least taking a shot at it…um…)
But wines—especially many reds—freeze somewhere above the mid-20s. White freeze first, reds follow. You don’t want corks pushed out and bottles cracked because you tried to “save space.” Or, in our case, bottles busted and threads stripped.
So: wine indoors. Simple.
5) Hydro room thermometer: know your threshold
In the hydroponics room we don’t have plants in grow mode right now, so no seedling panic. But there’s another wine rack in there, and we’ll have the studio closed off.
So the remediation isn’t “worry.” It’s measurement: put a thermometer in there and track the 28°F mark. If it drifts toward freeze, things move. Lots of wine jugs…
This is classic risk work: don’t guess. Instrument the risk.
6) Lean-to greenhouse: bring in the liquids
The lean-to greenhouse is where people lose money in winter. Not because plants die—though that happens—but because they forget the obvious:
Liquid plant foods and nutrients don’t tolerate freezing well.
So item six is a haul-in: all the liquid plant foods, any susceptible additives—inside where they won’t turn into a ruined chemistry set.
7) The shop: paint and chemicals are fragile
In the shop, freeze damage is a real thing—especially latex house paint. Once it freezes, you can shake it all day and it’ll never be the same.
So: bring freeze-susceptible paint and chemicals inside. This is one of those “cheap now, expensive later” decisions.
8) Cat food lands today (and yes, we’re energy-loading)
Cat food arrives today, and we’ll stop ordering it once the storm passes and the porch logistics calm down.
And because animals burn calories staying warm, we’ll “energy-load” the kibble with a little lard.
Before anyone writes me a letter: no, you don’t pour half a jar on it. But a small amount can help add calories and keep them from dropping condition when the weather is ugly. Cold weeks are not the time to run lean.
9) Foundation vents + temperature gun: confirm the crawl space
Storm prep is also about what you can’t see.
So I’ll re-check that the foundation vents are closed, and then hit the underside/crawl space with the temp gun to make sure we’re not sitting on a hidden freeze risk.
Because when pipes freeze under a house, they don’t send a polite email first.
10) Outside faucets: covers on, no excuses
Finally: ground covers on outdoor faucets. That’s the classic. Everyone knows it. People still forget. Don’t.
Tomorrow, before temps drop under 50, the two jugs of concentrated anti-freeze and a measuring tool will land from Amazon. And more….
The point of all this
This is what I mean by “workflow.” It’s not a buzzword. It’s not a productivity hobby.
Workflow is how you turn a vague threat—“winter storm watch”—into a set of concrete actions that reduce damage and reduce stress. Pre-flight checklist before flying into the next storm. Yeah, had the FIKI (flight into known icing) training which taught me to stay on the ground.
And the best part is you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be systematic.
Walk the house. Identify risks. Remediation is always cheapest in advance. Sleep better. Next up on my (disgustingly more comprehensive) list? Refill the genset propanes (2X 40 lbs and confirm 5 gallons of fresh gasoline (it’s a dual-fuel rig). And then test first for a half hour doing the changeover and voltage checks.
Weekly groceries land today, backup cooking gear? Check. Extra comforter on the bed? Goes on Elaine’s list.
Tomorrow, we’ll see what the forecast does. Tonight, we’ll do what we can control. Usually, when we do the ramp up? Magically dissipates inbound storm tracks… But now we see where more Texas snow is peeking out of next week’s forecasts….
Write when you get rich (or the forecast changes),
Read the full article here