The more I get into the “15-Year Problem” – defining how the world is likely to look that far into the future based on present trends – the more concerned I’ve become.  It’ll be the discussion tonight when I’m scheduled to be on CoastToCoastAM with George Noory.  However, because a lot of subscribers won’t be able to stay up that late, I’ve put together some talking point that comes the wide spectrum of change that’s barreling at us and due to arrive around 2019.  As a warm up act, though, we begin as always with a few headlines and another look at our Trading Model which has continued to insist that the market was going up all through the Ukraine manic-panic of the war-pandering press.  Pretty amazing how well it has done…shocking even to me!

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I’ve spent a troubling amount of time trying to understand why more work hasn’t been spent in an area that I call “psycho-econometric modeling.”  In order to understand the problem, we will get into a high-level discussion of the various types of econometric models and then we’ll give a brief discussion of how the psycho-social  goals of national “leaders” (worldwide, not just here) can be seen as inadequately addressed in most conventional models.  Of course, such a heady problem requires much caffeine…and so while we drink a couple of cup to gear up the brain cells, we’ll gnosh on some headlines. Including Bill Gates hinting at job collapse, a familiar view around here.

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(Albuquerque, NM)  Longtime reader and subscriber Gary asked my opinion on a problem of what to do with a “little extra” money that may be about to come his way.  While we don’t offer personal financial advices, a little free-wheeling discussion and thinking about the future is just our cup of tea.  So this morning after headlines and charts, we delve into that terrible maelstrom called “The 15 Year Problem…” and the happy ending to this week’s report is a strategy I call “The 15-Year Milk Stool Plan.”  It’s the one I intend to beat into my kid’s ears…it’s that logical.

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(Payson, AZ)  Our trip to the hills north of Phoenix has gone without a hitch, ever since we had the itinerant rat removed from the air conditioning system of our car; a common this thing time of the year.  And now, after about 24-hours of “field-testing” some ideas about gambling (and how it relates to investing in more conventional ways (like the stock market), a number of “lessons”  including one BIG ONE have come into view.  A few headlines that have rolled in over the weekend so far, but then  we’ll get to the important stuff…

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Because of our travel plans, Peoplenomics may be posted on Sunday morning instead of our usual Saturday.  Please excuse the deviation from our normal schedule.

Events in Eastern Europe have been moving quickly in recent weeks, as predicted.  They so far reveal US leadership is (look surprised here) somewhat deficient.  Not just in foreign affairs, either.  There have been a whole host of “wrong answers” piled on America in recent years.  Laws and programs with fine intent but terrible implementation and execution.  How does it happen?  For one thing, the American public has largely made a conscious decision to remain stoopid (sic).  Today, a quick fact-check of some of the reasons why self-governance by idiots may inevitably result in (care to guess what?) at the top.  After a rasher of morning headlines, and gallons of bean, we’re off thinking the unthinkable again.  Which seems to be increasingly popular, here lately.  So we trudge into the swamp of statistics, gambling, and investment…

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Can commercial real estate implode?  We began Wednesday looking at the Star Trek economy and wondered if Bitcoins might be one step on the path to that kind of idyllic world.  As far as I know, Star Trek hasn’t yet had a banker or investment advisor in a script yet and the reason’s pretty simple:  Accounting is (and ever-increasingly trends to) a background task that can (in most businesses) be totally automated.  This morning a short course in how this and the field of ERP (enterprise resource planning) with integrated accounting has been changing business models for the past 15 years and where it leads in the future.  Possible serious declines in demand for commercial real estate…  First, however, some headlines and we’ll try to sort out how the stock market managed to blow though a 100-point gain in the final hour of trading on Cowardly Friday…

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As Russia puts troops on alert this morning, we have our “Phasors locked on stun” this morning as we consider how the Star Trek economy worked.  There are some very interesting possibilities, especially when we see the arrival (and momentary decline) of the new cryptocurrencies.   Did “the Federation” have its economic root in something like ancient Bitcoins?  Hmmm… First, we’ll beam up some headlines, do the Sevastopol dance, then blast-off for the Forbidden Sector of Finance…

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We take a closer look at what’s ahead for Ukraine this morning, given that there has been an agreement, followed by protesters taking Kiev overnight.  It’s a timely matter following on the heels of our Wednesday report on commonalities of civil wars, the potential for it in former Soviet buffer states, as well as here in the USA.  We’ll also point out how the EU is stealing the foundations of democracy.  But first coffee and a few headlines, plus a check of port traffic (in order to pierce the veil of mumbo-jumbo surrounding the state of the economy) and a very telling chart that argues this economic cycle peaked in early 2000 and continues tracking to expectations…

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Curiously, Issue 650 comes the week I turn 65 – a sobering time of life when one looks both back and ahead and realized time is limited.  As a result, the importance of using time wisely (nearing the finish line) comes more into focus and with it, concern for the future of the country and our children who are, as my late grandmother pointed out,  really our legacy and immortality.   So we look this week at what civil wars are, how they start, and the degree to which economics figures in.  And then we look at the hardest question of all:  Could it happen, here, again?  Ukraine?  The numbers matter.   After coffee, headlines, and charts, of course.  We can’t  be marching off into a battle against cloudy thinking unarmed, so we’ll prep with 20 ounces of  Mrs. Olson’s finest, backed up with reinforcements  – a tablespoon of beans from Kona…

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When was the last time you invested $500 bucks in yourself? There are half a dozen really good “truths” out there that can help you live a much richer life that the modern education system does a horrible job of sharing.  Little things like “You can learn anything you set your mind to...” and “There’s a method to learning that can be applied to anything…” a template that’s really one-size fits all.  But that’s not economic or immediately useful.  So today we’re going to focus on one aspect of another truth:  Investing In yourself.  The way you do that is with what I call a “$200 Idea Fund.”   I’ll show you how I use it, and how it has sometimes paid off out of all proportion…after we skim some of the week’s headlines and have coffee…

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Not to go completely “long-hair economics” on you, but we only have about two weeks from today before I expect the whole European-expansionist crap (backing through economic proxies dissent in Ukraine) to begin blowing up in a serious way because THAT will be when the Sochi Games are over (closing ceremony: 10 AM on the 23rd) and it give enough time for the visiting PTB to get out of town.  So this morning we look at two important questions.  The first was asked by my friend Cesare Marchetti in a paper included in “Kondratieff Waves, Warfare, and World Security” [NATO Security through Science Series, E: Human and Societal Dynamics Vo. 5], 2006.  And that other nasty bugger, the socioeconomic collapse that Rolfe A.A. Witzsche writes of in his “Roots in Universal History.”  Both of which are potentially quite useful to study in light of the coming end of not just the Sochi Games, I’m afraid, but the period of quiescence we’ve been in since the initial decline off the global market peak in December.  But enough!  We’ll have no further deep thoughts until we first have coffee and agree the world is just as FU’d this morning as it was yesterday…

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This is not one of those “I’m going to retire early because I want to get something back for all those payments I put in,” kind of stories.  This is a story about how to optimize when a person who is just coming up on the NRA (normal retirement age in Social Securitese) has to “run the numbers” which was one of this week’s important projects around here.  Even if you’re not going to retire yourself shortly, odds are that you know someone who is just about to hit the “graying out” age and it’s useful stuff to know.  Oh, and along the way?  You’ll find how the Social Security rules screw people born before June.   Truly strange.  It’s a fine exercise in my “find the recipe” approach to learning.  After, as usual, the morning bean and brain of the charts and what-have-you.  And a long rap about what our trading model is telling us…

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