TL;DR: Unless we get new highs – before Friday of next week – the smell of “we’re toast” will be back. Vets – thank you for your service, now back to work – and at the ranch? Enjoying the “Earth Ride” review.

“Toast or Rally?”

In modeling the future – which we do almost compulsively around here – there’s a possible fork in the road that comes a week from Friday.

A large cross-market study examining 48 major stock indices over multiple decades found that average returns tended to be meaningfully higher during new-moon periods than full-moon periods, amounting to roughly a 3–5% annualized differential. Researchers noted a statistically detectable pattern in the data: new-moon windows correlated with slightly elevated equity performance. That said, the magnitude is small relative to normal market noise, the causality is unproven, and the effect is not robust enough to serve as a standalone trading signal.

BUT…having disclaimed that enough for legal…we may drop a show with the next lower waffle.  As the late Martin Zweig always advised “Never fight the Fed.”

How does it feel to live in an Economics Lab?  We explained in the Monday column (“Tariff Dream or Debt Scheme?“) how government could – at least in theory, do a “People’s Hyperinflation” if they are clever about it.  Send out made-up “tariff rebates” (or call it some other name) then tax people at a rate high enough to make it partly “pencil-out.”  People dumb enough to dribble their lives out on social media, you know they will believe anything, right?

Besides, penciling out may not be necessary.  Back in the Peoplenomics archives somewhere we did some work on Stephanie Kelton’s idea.  Remember her?  She’s an economist associated with Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and wrote the 2020 book The Deficit Myth, which argues that sovereign currency-issuing governments are not financially constrained in the same way households or businesses are, and can create money to fund public priorities as long as they manage inflation risks.

She wasn’t arguing just for the “free lunch” idea.  Nope. She went bigger. Enough money for breakfast, too, plus dinner, a private jet and a month in Europe, too, if government were so caring.  (Don’t worry, it’s not.)

With a variable pay-off plan (and a tax-gizmo for plausible deniability), who cares, right?  The public gets to keep working its ass off (until the die-off plans kick in) building out dream lands for the survivors a generation or three ahead…so yeah.  Take the reopening and relax.

Or, here’s  documentary from the Babylon Bee: Congress Prepares To Pivot From Doing Nothing Because Of The Shutdown To Doing Nothing Because They’re Congress.

Here’s Where the Future Matters

The lah-lah-nomics aside, there’s still the matter of clocks and Reality Discovery points.

Any one of these (hell, worst case all of ’em) popping before the turkey thermometers is possible.

Nothing you and I can do about it.  We’ve been strapped into bodies and tied into social rolls. About all we can do is “Eyes Wide Shut” and try not to mess ourselves.

Which we might, say the catastrophists, pointing to the possibility of a major Earth-directed X-class solar flare.  For us (only slightly less worried), there’s one eye on this NRT JSON file.

Scaling News Mountain

Here’s a morning set of pitons to climb out of mental fog.

The Future looks gruesome: Gavin Newsom, Eyeing 2028, Tries to Mess With Texas. Maybe appealing to Austin City Dimwits… Otherwise, if we want to sniff BS, we have cattle, thanks.  Oh, and we also know how to run our oil and gas business, thanks.  Saw Gruesome genius at play in Lining Up For Gas In California – Issues & Insights. Go back to Cali – and take Beto with you.

Thing is, lawfaring is becoming a two-way street.  Trump’s sweeping 2020 election pardon raises alarms ahead of the midterms – POLITICO.

Monday I mentioned demographic shifts wrecking the UK.  And now the follow-on: English Councils Say Cost Of REMOVING English Flags Is “Money Well Spent”

A Climate of disgust? As they paved how much of the Amazon for roads to climate ego confabs?  Sheesh.  The article The Myths We’re Told About Climate Change could have used the world “lies” instead, but a summary of the issues…

Squishy-think in the courts again: Supreme Court Agrees to Decide If Mail-In Ballots Must Arrive by Election Day.  The libber-left can’t handle deadlines like the word “Day.”  If they can’t tell time…don’t get me started.

The Seattle Follies

Are you ready for the Big City Failures to begin?  Keep an eye on Seattle and New York.  NYC for the obvious: Mamdani has made enough promised that the city may never be able to keep.  When it dawns on “real people” we expect the NE Diaspora to begin in earnest.

But watch Seattle, and to a lesser extent Portland.  Seattle has a two problems: inexperienced social government on the one hand, and grandiose non-worker’s paradise designs. In the latest Seattle’s SODO housing ordinance blocked after Port of Seattle wins lawsuit. While the politics sound all high falutin’ the reality is Boeing bounced from the PNW, silicon split for east of Lake Washington, and now? Looks like the left of commies are trying to run the Port out, too, with city land grab designs.

At the macro level?  Big Cities because almost like ancient city-states.  But now, with overnight everywhere and Starlink, if you want to live in traffic jams, that’s a choice – and not a particularly good one.

Elaine and I are typical elders.  We can afford to live anywhere.  Neither one of us would return to a Big City on a bet.  We’re safer out here with guns, food, and silence – all of which would be instantly lost if these mini-Kremlins ran things.

Set a watch: We are setting up for Big City Failures – the likes of which America hasn’t seen since the Great Depression.  Oh, you forgot, did you?  During the rabble rousing festival?

Lots of major U.S. cities hit the wall during the Depression, unable to meet debt service or payroll. Back then: Detroit, Michigan, which defaulted on bond payments in 1933; Cleveland, Ohio, which entered state oversight and emergency financing arrangements; Boston, Massachusetts, forced into state-controlled receivership for a period due to inability to cover obligations; and Chicago, Illinois, which faced de facto insolvency in 1931–33 and resorted to issuing “scrip” to pay employees when cash ran out. These cases didn’t always involve formal bankruptcy filings—municipal bankruptcy law wasn’t fully formed—but they were effectively insolvent by any practical measure.

If we were in the (non-existent) “forward-planning office” of the FedGov (when they get back from vacation) we’d be suggesting the Feds have a bailout plan for big cities. Seattle, Portland, NYC, Chicago, SF (not south bay).

Around the Ranch: “Earth Ride” Reframing

Look for columns to return to less “all-day reads” to more pointed. That’s because we’ve crunched numbers and seems readers are “thought skimmers” more than “future projectors.”  The latter is something you can do yourself – if interested – you just need the grist.

Having just published my latest book (Mind Amplifiers) I’m enjoying the afterglow.  The biggest one is reframing of life as a long-time based Space Mountain amusement park ride.

The “Earth Ride” begins with boarding the (body as a) ride car at birth.  Climbing the ride tower (growing up and education) and then letting loose at the top. Like a roller-coaster. Mid-life.  Finally, out here at the 80 year mark, you know you’re coming into the “ride station” where everyone has to get off.  But, it would sure be fun to go again…

There – “Earth Ride” complete.  Take your Live Videos to the “life review experience” and let us know if you want to ride carbon or silicon on the next ride.  Unless you were misbehaved on “Earth Ride” (a carbon-friendly ride) in which case there are  sulfur-based rides with reptilians…

Yeah – life simplifies.  But here we are – on the ride for another day- and it’s been a great one.

Write when you get rich,

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