Super short column today because?  Come on! I’m six-months out from 77 and that new super table saw (the Evolution R-10TBLX) is coming out of the box today, one way or the other. So there’s that, and a custom K5WZ horse fence antenna about to land.  So, let’s make this quick – I got solar panels to wire before the Sun gets too high…

Retail Sales

Hit, or miss?  You make the call…

“Advance estimates of U.S. retail and food services sales for June 2025, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences, but not for price changes, were $720.1 billion, up 0.6 percent (±0.5 percent) from the previous month, and up 3.9 percent (±0.5 percent) from June 2024. Total sales for the April 2025 through June 2025 period were up 4.1 percent (±0.4 percent) from the same period a year ago. The April 2025 to May 2025 percent change was unrevised from down 0.9 percent (±0.2 percent).

Us?  We think the whole world could emphasize people more, products less and we’d all be better off. Still, here are the bodies and there are the credit cards…poof! Retail’s up.

Secondary Indicator: Philly Fed

Up – gets us wondering if the Fed will be able to decrease rates even in September…

The diffusion index for current general activity rose 20 points to 15.9 in July, its first positive reading after three negative readings and its highest reading since February (see Chart 1). Nearly 32 percent of the firms reported increases in general activity this month (up from 25 percent last month), while 16 percent reported decreases (down from 28 percent); 49 percent reported no change (up from 44 percent). The index for new orders increased 16 points to 18.4 this month, and the current shipments index increased from 8.3 to 23.7, also their highest readings since February.”

After the number, futures were mixed to down…

Weekly Jobless Filings

And here’s where the filing lines were longer:

11 Real-World Stories That Actually Matter

#1,  that big shaker up in Alaska Wednesday afternoon. 7.3 magnitude earthquake rattles Alaskan island, prompting tsunami warning. Why it matters?  We are in a period when there has been a lot of “chatter” on the web about the possibility of a major quake in Japan – and some see it as being near Tokyo with visionaries having hints of Mt. Fuji in background.

The rest of what really matters “outside the hypnotic bubble of media”? (OHBM) Here’s the other 10 stories that matter:

1. Rising Insurance Costs & Service Cutbacks

Home, auto, and health insurance premiums are soaring—even for claim-free customers—while coverage and customer service are shrinking.  We massively restructured our own insurance this year as the whole Insurance industry is transitioning from honest “risk-sharing” (its original purpose) to a financial shake-down racket.

2. Food Price Inflation Hidden by Shrinkflation

Grocery bills stay high as packages quietly shrink. Families are getting less but still paying more, while media outlets claim “inflation is cooling.”  Elaine’s 52 ounce high pulp orange juice is now 46 ounces – and the price went up to boot.

3. Vanishing Local Healthcare Access

Rural hospitals and clinics are closing or consolidating, forcing people to drive hours for basic care or emergencies.  Wellness and longevity are your touchstones now.  Work on sharpening the mental division in your thinking between “lifespan” and “healthspan.”  Work on the latter and the former is almost self-tending.

4. Real Wages Still Aren’t Keeping Up

Despite job growth headlines, most wage gains have been erased by cumulative inflation. Paychecks feel smaller even if numbers are up. Inflation is helping drive wages up. But the tax bites go along with it. And with government jiggering with the Fed ransom payments (America pays rent on its own money) it looks like progress until you do grown-up accounting.  Wjhen you do that? Lessd than 2 percent a decade.  Big effing whoop!

5. Weaponized Bureaucracy & Regulatory Overreach

Small business owners and farmers are being buried under red tape, inspections, and shifting compliance rules that favor megacorps.  The reason America was “turned away from God” in some sense was the separation of Church and State.  But Corporations aren’t shackled that way and there’s a slow power shift as corporations are in a slow-motion buyout when you scale your timeframe of reference.  Whole thing should be on eBay but sham elections….corruption…

6. Housing Crunch & Landlord Laws

Average Americans are being priced out of both owning and renting. Investors, corporations, and Airbnbs are pushing locals out of housing.  This is why we have been advocating buying a home – even li8ke we did, a double wide in the woods – because it locks the cost.  And when it’s paid off, all you have is the “rent paid to government” via confiscatory tax policies.

7. Education System Breakdown

Public schools are overcrowded, under performing, and increasingly politicized—while student debt for practical jobs is still sky-high. The Higher Ed lie will break, but it’s a slow-motion process.  Higher ed’s value is going down as Ai’s value is coming up and on top of it, siloing by subject – which is one of their major tripwires to progress hasn’t improved as the whole “peer review” scam is perpetrated by people who get paid to be “experts.”  Yep.

8. Digital Dependence & Deplatforming Risk

People outside the mainstream face growing censorship, banking restrictions, and algorithmic shadow bans just for holding unpopular views.  UrbanSurvival and Peoplenomics can’t be de-platformed – we saw that coming years ago – and opted not to run to the social guillotine. Ya’ll have fun with deplatforming.

9. Aging Infrastructure & Power Grid Insecurity

Roads, bridges, and the electric grid are decaying. Extended outages from weather or sabotage are becoming real threats in non-urban areas. Ask yourself: Why is old man Ure wiring up solar panels and writing about it incessantly in ShopTalk Sunday columns?  Yeah…why?

10. Escalating Global Tensions = Draft & War Risk

While media obsesses over celebrity drama, working-class kids are still the ones sent to fight. Escalations in Europe, Taiwan, and the Middle East may bring back the draft or economic disruptions that hit hardest at home.  Good news if you’re a Zero-Pop fan, but a messier way to get there than education, know what I mean?

Headlines to Ponder

Heads are rolling in politics – think it has to do with law-faring? The Latest: Justice Department fires prosecutor on Epstein case and daughter of ex-FBI director.

ONLY $9-billion in cuts? Senate approves $9 billion in cuts to foreign aid, public broadcasting funding.

We may be able to stop buying “Mexican Coke” (made with sugar not killer chems) but let’s see if they go whole cane or just enough to move HFCS down the ingredient list:  Trump says Coca-Cola to switch to cane sugar in US products

And speaking of the reclusive one… Trump rescinds $4 billion in US funding for California High-Speed Rail project.  Last time I looked, they hadn’t laid any track yet…

Around the Ranch: Woo-Woo or Statistics?

Wanted to talk to a buddy of mine Wednesday.  So I asked him to send me his phone number – I had misplaced it.  So he did. But when I called, it went to a voicemail for some woman named Angela.

Well, he got tired of waiting for my call, so he called me.  We had a grand old chat – catching up.  Then he mentioned “…my daughter Angela…”

“Wait!  Was that her number you fat-fingered sending to me?”

“No,, that was my number but there was one digit off.., I gave you a 5 instead of a 6….”

That’s when it dawned on us that this was either woo-woo OR one of the most unusual coincidences ever.

That sent me to the Ai stack.  What are the odds?

“130,000 / 40,000,000 = 0.00325 ? or about 1 in 307.”

And this is the Problem of Woo-Woo in a nutshell.  The odds of that happening at less than 1 in 300 and yet there it was and both of us were (sort of) amazed.

But it’s the core issue of woo-woo.  “What are the odds?”

This kind of thing happens to people almost every day (ask Andy) but few people notice it because they are not tuned into The Dude and how it all works.

But when it goes on for years….you kind of reach a conclusion.

Write when you get rich, (Unless you’re Angela…in which case none of this will make sense…)

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