We hold the major Purpose of Life is the successive achievement of “perfect days.”  With 2023 wrapping up, we depart from the usual economic fare to contemplate what makes for a “Perfect Day” and engage in the task of stringing a lot of them together in 2024.

It hasn’t escaped our notion that as our interest in more Perfect Days has increased, so have the obstacles to their achievement.  Aging and pending collapse of the world into war and social entropy have done a dandy job in 2023 out-distancing aging.

Naturally, holiday week or not, we also serve up the usual.  Our snarly view of depressing news and the confounding market charts.  Which, while not back up to the (so far) all-time highs of 2021 on an Aggregate basis, seem to be making a hell of a run at it.

We shall see….

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Of course, with this being a holiday weekend, we will still have our ChartPack.  Where you’ll see why I went short near the close Friday.

But there are a number of other items to cover, which we’ve lumped into “Useful Senior Tips” and I hope you find the discussion points useful.

Plus, it may be a good weekend to catch up on our Building a Personal Ark book, which is already somewhere north of 23-thousand words…

Warm up the coffee and let’s go, then…

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In our new book, The Personal Ark, we tackle what kind of personal data resources you may need if (or when) we experience GHD (grid, hard down). There are lots of considerations. some of which are non-apparent.

This assumes, of course, that you’re a second-level prepper.  A first-level person focuses on basic food, water, and shelter issues for some period of time.  But the second-level prepper then goes on to figure a transition to a permanent state of being without commercial resources.

The dividing line is whether you have seeds, gardening tools and viable plans and knowledge.  If you do, you’re a second level prepper.

As you can tell, there’s a huge gap between eating what’s on hand and growing, hunting, fishing, and trapping to get the rest.

So, toward this end, a discussion of how to structure information support for that kind of world.

First though, looks like the Colorado Don Ban will go to the US-SupCo and will California try it, too?

Plus, there’s that rousing rally which we’re watching from the sidelines.  Stick around, going to be an interesting Holiday ahead.

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Where we size up how the year has been and look ahead to next year’s challenges.  We like to have these lookaheads because they go hand-in-glove with other annual exercises, such as the personal financial statement discussion.

We have been – for literally decades – fans of the concept preached in management schools “What gets measured gets done.”

This is a “tough-on-self” way to personal accountability.  But the alternative is a slacker’s life with no (or minimal) change toward the better.

Thus, we begin with a world review (our Seven Systems of Life) and use this as the playing field to plot out where the Future might be directed. With surprisingly little effort, too.

One thing people don’t seem to live to is the notion that if you are living in “harmony with Universe” Life’s a very easy “row to hoe.”  If you attempt to swim counter to Shakespeare’s “Tide in the Affairs of Men” you likely won’t get very far and you can be thrown for losses.

Not a long column this morning – mainly the charts and a few headlines to underscore our outlooks. But, then again, we had that super-long Tuesday report on Personal Ark Building (Part 3) which many subscribers haven’t been able to work into their schedules, yet.

Pour, relax, read.

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“Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not.” Famous quote from the late Robert F. Kennedy. Very much on point as we answer the question “What is a rational person to do for a survival strategy in a world gone mad?”

The answer has, for more than 20-years for Elaine and me, to attempt building our own “Personal Ark.”  We don’t expect the Biblical rains, but the risk of other raining down on the world?  A review of headlines says that is a non-zero risk.  The Middle East is locked in battle over future energy and in Ukraine, the West/NATO is making “remote viewer” predictions of a NATO breakup in early 2024 sound not so far-fetched.

We’re not just serving a long chapter today – looking at home-based business ideas.  We also have this little matter of a Fed  rate decision after lunch plus the usual “world in breakup mode” to follow as well.

Pour a second cup and put notifications on hold.  There’s a lot to cover and like Booker T and the M.G.s used to play, Time is Tight.

(OK, maybe a 9,600-word reportis  a little over-the-top.  But this is part of a book, you know, Besides, if you don’t have time to read it all today, there’s the holidays just ahead…)

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Today we consider investment lessons from the field of software design.  And, in particular a parallel between stock market decision matrices and software decision-making related to voice response devices such as Alexa and Siri.

I know, sounds a little bit “out there” but (trust me, it is) it’s actually how modern engineering works.

Clever generalization of solutions. You take a simple problem in one field and then translate it to a solution in another through (an application of TRIZ) and come up via our Substitution method of innovation, with a new way of considering a problem.

Which circles us back to financial engineering.  And the “What the hell was that all about Friday with Job lies out the ying-yang?”

After a few headlines, of course. Since we need to keep our wits about us despite rancor in the wings.

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Money is what “floats your boat” in today’s second installment of our Ark building book. Because while “prepping” may be popular, what’s really satisfying is the larger context in life: Building a Personal Ark to sail into the unknowable future.

We aren’t building a Noah-like flood building, though.  Rather we are looking at owning a platform and siting it where a voyage into Future might be possible.

The sequence we’re into now involves some lessons designed to help open your Opportunity Eyes, Ark’s cost money.

In doing so, we’ll lay the financial foundation of your independence Ark (survival platform). Something that can survive (hopefully!) the worst the world can throw at it.

Next week, following this groove, we’ll be exploring 50+ years of personal Renaissance and street faire recon to give you concrete examples of how “seeing” with Opportunity Eyes works for people on this personal platform path.

Two major points to cover first, however, before we get go Future Building, though.  The ADP Job Report is just out.  And there’s a decision coming from Markets as Charts are looking ready to bolt – one way, or the other.

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With markets at new (nominal) highs this weekend, a look to see where the runaway train is headed seems to make sense.  Will we hit a turn and “jump the tracks?”

As we ponder this, the Russians have gained more ground in the area of Donetsk where future-critical petroleum reserves are located.  Plus now we’re hearing about energy deposits becoming a major turning point in South America as well.

If you’re new to Peoplenomics these developments – while a horror to level-headed, peaceful persons – are very predictable.  Since there are more than 8-billion people in the world and we are eating the planet barren at an astounding rate.  As I’ve told you again this week, energy is “future food.”

More coffee, then,  as we follow the twists and turns of Life at the edge of the Petri Dish.  With a ChartPack update featuring more than a dozen charts showing where the market wants to go…

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Getting hard to “run away to the frontier” to craft a new kind of life these days.  But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. It just takes a little different mindset to pull it off.

Today, the first 7,000-word chunk of how to pull it off.  Everything from escape to the backwoods, the sea, and even dry camping forever in an RV.

Before we do that, however, into the markets and a slug of new data just out.  Which will lead into the two Fed Chair Powell Appearances on Friday.

Pour a little more coffee than usual as we head out in search of Next America.

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Today we venture into the Twilight Zone between woo-woo and financial analytics.  Which, if you had asked me about last week, I’d have admitted is unlikely to exist. But now, thanks to “Living Two Lives” – a waking world and an amazing Dream Realm existence, I’m pretty sure it exists.

And forget Michigan and Ohio State this weekend.  In the Dream Realms the future that matters is ruled by something called Fateball.

Out of which arose (Friday afternoon) a new way to ferret the future – hidden in market data – which says (I’ll explain why) that the week ahead will be a downer.

Toss in the ongoing problems of war, hostages, and global politics, and we are on the 50-yard line where numerical and computational advances on the one hand (like A.I.) are still unable to end non-computational mathematical outcomes like love and hate, peace and war.

Yes sir, been a really interesting week…

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Feeling up for a book chapter-length discussion of Personal Landing Zones?  5,000 words on topic, but first we have other pressing business.

Still, I think you’re going to enjoy this morning’s survey. Because we’re going to show you how “prepping” is only part of a process that leads from setting up your personal “landing zone” to prepping and then on to arking.  Which is the bigger picture long-term self-sufficiency planning for you, you loved ones, and your heirs.

“Kentucky windage” will be required over time, however, to whatever shots are taken early. The Future is pretty slippery stuff and holding it is – at best – like eel wrestling.

The usual “roar of the grease paint and smell of the crowds” as we roll into the holiday. With our consigliere on hand, no shortage of new ideas to debate and conjecture over America’s way forward from here; if there’s to be one, that is.

Thursday will be an actual day off, which means only a shorter column, more’n likely. Ham radio antenna hanging is in the works thanks to my Potensic and his DJI. If you don’t know what those are, time to widen your tech horizons a bit.

Bean up – we have much to cover…

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The State of America is the annual topic around here when the turkey comes out.  Though, unlike many American households, there’s usually very little spread of opinion.  Because, when everyone at the table is over 70, they have been kicked-around enough by Life to have moderated most previously held extreme (or stupid) views.

Notwithstanding, we will begin today’s column with a short list of things than are showing up in headlines which could be harbingers of the Future.

This Turkey Day will be among the riskiest ever, we expect.  Partly because of the thousands upon thousands of OTM illegals the (retarded) administration has allowed to infiltrate the “Next Front of WW3″ via the southern border.  So bad, in fact that the FBI this week issued a terrorism warning about the period ahead.

Despite people elected to office (and not) the job of “securing America” has become something of a joke.  The crooks go unpunished (or to Nantucket) for the holiday.

An early hats off, therefore, before we begin, to the First Responders of fire, police, and medicine, plus convenience store clerks and travel workers who make the annual brush with insanity tolerable. At least to some extent.

With that as the set-up, and a reminder to keep your ears open and eyes out for “Exit” signs in public places where (Middle East-backed) terror could be applied as leverage, let’s commence “talking turkey.”

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Or, how I turned a 40% gain into a 10% gain by modifying a successful trading approach.  Not a tale of woe (though anyone who says “It’s only money” is a damned liar). It’s really about the soaring cost of a good market education when you’re out on the theoretical edge.

Death may have the marketing slogan “Grim Reaper” but looks to us like A.I. is becoming the “Grim Thinker.” Which we will examine in detail this morning.

I probably couldn’t have chosen a worse time to change from day trading to position trading if I had tried. It is real money, sure, but I can make it back, no problem. Just ticks me off (at myself) that I didn’t see it coming, better.  Lessons learned?

Based on our doctor visit results Tuesday, we will likely live at least long enough to recoup, since our health is excellent, even though our change-of strategies timing ain’t.

Market data dumps are on the way plus there’s the matter of craziness ahead…ah, that.  Need to sample water from that end of the pool, too.

Trader’s ponder du jour? Coffee, tea, or flee?

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