Breaking: BTC
Bitcoin dropped to the vicinity of $66,600 overnight – a drop of more than $2,000 at one point. Bitcoin drops to two-week low as $300 million in longs are liquidated has a summary.
Traction vs. Terror
Earlier features today had the markets trying to stabilize after a terrible drop again Thursday.
By itself, this is disappointing for people with life savings in the care of others. Because, as we warned, when the 200 day moving average is penetrated, a lot of investment policy guidelines in big funds have to flip out of stocks into something else.
I know: what pray-tell might be out there?
For the past couple of years, I have been deeply drawn to food, water, analog radio gear, and local medical supplies and physical condition as the “right moves.” We will get into this in the “At the Ranch” part of the column, but this is the Big Ponder in the weekend ahead.
For starters today, let’s set up the game board and have a look.
Look Over Your Shoulder
I’ve spent a great fraction of my life “looking at indicators” and come to an interesting conclusion. Some people “see indicators” and feel safe ignoring them. While others look and know they will die if they’re ignored.
Soft indicators are the every day stuff: emotions like vengeance, threats, bluster, hate, greed – the whole pile of human folly. Objectively real but not usually fatal, at least in the short-term.
But then there are “killer indicators.” When I’m working on a 2-thousand watt linear amplifier, if I don’t believe my John Fluke meters, I really could die. Same thing while flying all over the country, single engine, single pilot: Lose the discipline of the artificial horizon, airspeed, VSI and compass? Bad things can happen – the kind were you can “do your own burial.”
Here’s the pause on the way to the Ponder for the weekend: Why is there such a spread between people’s reactions to data sets like the ones above? You see, that sets up the “chart problem.” What is this telling us?
This perception gap – and trying to understand the sloped sides of “emergent concern” is a grand area for lifetime study.
Still, it’s not just finance on the brink of replaying earlier disaster timeframes. We see it in the replay of their 1920s Teapot Dome in the Epstein debacle. And the Lindbergh Kidnapping case of ’32 in the Guthrie kidnapping which we said at the time “look for it to go long on the timeline.” And sure enough, Ex-FBI Agent Reveals Why Savannah Guthrie’s Interview Will Leave Her Mother’s Abductors ‘Terrified’.
While we wait for this socioeconomic cycle’s Bruno Hauptman to be nabbed, the Dust Bowl is forming in the emerging Drought map which is spreading quickly. Good news on this front is part of the South is in for a drenching next week – so pencil in flood coverage for your news addiction, say second week of April?
I’m pretty sure our inability to see patters is based on natural selection – how we all “see” differently because of variance in regional predation in antiquity. Still, the predators are afoot. Only now, some of the clever ones are in office.
A Side of War
You want internal or foreign with your hashbrowns?
Internally, Senate votes to fund much of DHS, minus immigration. While this is the (radical left crazies) responding to (pissed, vote ’em out) public pressure from the air travel nightmare, the failure to secure the Border is just what America’s enemies want.
See, here’s the thing: With the Iran War hot, what would be a logical (low-cost, effective) counterstrike? Uh-huh. Strike at the belly of the beast. And here are the traitors to borders getting their way. Sound like we have an opinion? Yep.
The filth of politics continues: Senate approves funding for TSA but not ICE and Donald Trump says he will fund back pay. There’s something seriously FUBAR when political hacks across the spectrum can hold vital services hostage. Ah, but that’s just us.
Trump, Waffles and…Where’s the Syrup?
Second on our war and more bore is a drill down into the Middle East war.
A good starting point is this overview: Iran Update Special Report, March 26, 2026 | ISW.
But the TACO label (Trump Always Chickens Out) gets applied by critics on Trump extending his “deadline.” Which dovetails into Oil prices up: Trump signals Strait of Hormuz easing tensions. Not that this will cure gasoline prices in Asia, or fears of fertilizer costs and shortages, but any port in a glass, eh?
The Instrument Scan
Here’s today’s preview of the next 12-hours of flight time into known terrain:
One of the side impacts of the Iran War may be more nuclear power: Makes a lot of sense: Southeast Asia turns to nuclear as Iran war disrupts energy supplies.
Another impact? US considers sending 10,000 more troops to Middle East. But, that may take the focus off Ukraine.
How big can an ego get? Another metric to ponder. Trump’s signature to appear on US currency in a first for sitting president.
No time for the casino? Here’s an interesting prospect instead: The SpaceX IPO and the Elon Musk Factor.
And a personal health note of interest if you have psoriasis. This skin problem is linked to serious heart diseases. Which we note with some interest because back in the 1960s there were ads for a consumer product that promised to deal with “The heartbreak of psoriasis…” Is this how the global mass consciousness materializes the future based on intent or repeated thought? If you’re young, you may not remember the Tegrin ads. But a reality research note worth remembering, around here.
At the Ranch: The “Noah Problem”
The Ure’s made a decision to “spread the wealth around” a bit this week. Diversifying into another bank. Besides the Big National and the Trading and Checking and whatever else.
It was a logical outcome from study of “The Noah Problem.”
And in the same kind of Tegrin vein, the Ark ponder dates back to the original Bill Cosby skit which runs about 3-minutes if you’re not familiar with it. Before the trials and jail, and all that.
The Noah Problem I’ve been facing in the final half of my life has been “What should I be building?”
A Global Coastal Event means we should be back on a sailboat. Stiks is enjoying northern Australian waters (and land) on his. And there are times I miss “the boat” like crazy.
Drought says I should be working on water capture and most calories per gallon in local food growing around here. Makes perfect sense.
An EMP attack says no, put in more solar panels and protect them all with transient voltage diodes so they will survive. In the world after EMP power will be money. Along with comms.
Solar flare worriers argue that an underground home will be the best possible protection. Dig it in deep enough and it also solves the heating and cooling problems because underground homes (depending on area) will be comfortably 50-65 year round. Friends of ours with an underground home enjoyed a crackling fire in July heat in their bunker-qualified home.
But not so fast! You won’t want to be in an underground home if the New Madrid lights off and we get a 9+ earthquake in the US. You’d have built your own coffin.
And thus, the Big Ponder. One of the cross-platform solutions to times ahead? Building your own serious library. And you have to look at it in terms of what LOOB mentioned in our Comment section today when he wrote:
“Civilizations don’t collapse because of one big event. They fade when the center stops holding — when the habits that kept knowledge alive get replaced by noise and speed. Maybe that’s why our overlooked books matter more than we think. Someone has to keep the lights on in the library, even if the world forgets it’s there.”
But even in massive multi-terabyte data collections the Noah Problem strikes:
Boat building books, or ag books, or electrical systems, or water catchment, or…
It doesn’t keep me up nights, but it sure fills up the days.
Write when you get rich – or hear from Noah,
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