Charles Minard's Map of Napoleon's Retreat - 1869

 Weekend 9/20, 2026

 CHarles Minard's 1869 graphic to this day is a model of great design.

Take a read to understand how many different items are easily displayed on this graphic.  

 

The Minard diagram, created by Charles Joseph Minard in 1869, visually represents Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Moscow in 1812-1813, illustrating the decline in the size of his army due to harsh conditions and military losses. It shows that out of 422,000 troops, only about 10,000 survived the return journey.

Overview of Minard's Diagram

Minard's diagram is a significant historical infographic that conveys complex data visually.

• Flow Representation — The diagram uses a flow map to depict the size of Napoleon's army as it advanced and retreated, illustrating the drastic reduction in troop numbers over time.
• Temperature Data — It includes temperature data, highlighting the extreme cold faced by the troops during their retreat, which contributed to their losses.
• Geographical Context — The map overlays the geographical route taken by the Grande Armée, providing context to the challenges faced during the campaign.
• Historical Impact — Minard's work is often cited as one of the best examples of data visualization, influencing modern infographic design and statistical graphics.

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 Weekend 9/20/2026

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Political Splitsville?

 Weekend 9/20/2026

Scotland, Wales, and Northern ireland sign memof of understanding to split form the UK. 

This article suggests a vote failed to split from the UK previously failed and another is not schedule. 

Still, interesting that this is happening now. 

 

Positive social mood is inclusionary, let's get together. Negative mood is exclusionary, as in the above. 

Ukraine wants nothing to do with Russia. Iran, despite VP Vance illusion, has no interest in being a 'normal nation.

Meanwhile in Texas, from wiki

 When Clements first entered office in 1979, he was the first Republican to have served as governor of Texas in over a century. When Clements left office for good at the end of his second term in 1991, his eight years in office were the most served by any Texas governor until Rick Perry surpassed his total in 2009. Clements was the first governor to be elected to multiple terms since Texas changed its constitution in 1972 to extend its governor's term of office to four years. Since then, George W. Bush, Rick Perry, and Greg Abbott, also Republicans, have all won multiple terms.

____________

Gov Abbott apparently cannot think of anything to do sother than run for Gov a fourth time. Dem Gina Hinojsa looks to be running neck and neck with him in this race. Trump dumped US Senator John Cornn for ethically challenged former AG Paxton. In a race with two terrible choices Talarico,a member of the Texas House, is running slightly ahead of Paxton.

 Clemnents turned Texas red in 1979. A change in Governor and Senate would be a big change. 

We'll see. 

The social mood point is that a throw the bums out movement is afoot.  

__________________

Warren Buffet steps down as Chair of BRK 

As he says at 96 Father Time  is around the corner and now his son, Howie, assumes the role.

But I note he started this back at the dawn of the bull market or rather before 1982. Now that the DOW has hit  54,000, a good time to exit at a market top. Ditto for Tim Cook at Apple. The fold phone actually pioneered by Android is the latest Apple idea, good time to exit. 

The Wal Mart Problem

 Weekend 9/19/2026

 As prevoiusly said here, if any one comp[any tracks the social mood of the US is it surely Wal Mart WMT. It peaked mid May and has been in serious decline since. There are two air pocket drops highlighted by the blue arrows. It has not regained the down trendlines shown in blue for RSI, stock price or PMO top to bottom.

Costco looks pretty much the same way. 

 add Lowe's to the list

 

a 1.5 year weekly chart is below.  The FIB moving averages have been taken out and are turning down. 

 Monthly charts are slow to react. Here is the five year chart.

 PMO, a momentum indicator, has turned down on the monthly chart. The rise from 2025 looks parabolic ending ina spike up. Sure looks like the start of a trend change, and this is on teh long term chart. The long term chart is verifying what is happening on the short term daily chart.

King Charles Meet sthe Kings of AI = A Socionomic Moment

 Friday 9/18/2026

 LIVE: King Charles Hosts Major AI Meeting With OpenAI, Nvidia and Anthropic | AI15

View of Dumfries House in Cumnock, Scotland, where Britain’s King Charles is hosting a meeting with leading artificial intelligence executives. Representatives from Nvidia, Google DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic are attending the gathering, focused on the future of AI, its opportunities and potential risks. The meeting comes as global ...

______________________

 

When the business news is also the headline general public news, a socionomic  moment is at hand. 

AI leaders seem to sense in the US that a Democrat takeover of at least Congress is coming Democrats like to control everything and Bernie Sanders has said so! Hence leaders are asking for control. Translation, government control of where things are now will insure the exisitng parties remains in control, no new entries wanted or needed or allowed! this used to be called oligolopoly. 

 

Movements tend to peak at the feet of world leaders and here we are. The AI mania is on a short socionomic fuse.   

Rates Rise weekly Column

 9/17/2026

  

Rates Rise

 

Thursday 9/17/2026 This column has been anticipating higher interest rates for several years. That is now happening. The benchmark ten-year Treasury note has climbed to a 5% yield. Let’s re-examine how this happened.

Interest rates bottomed in 1942. Rates would rise in a 39-year cycle. Then the ten-year note carried a 2% yield. Rates rose for 39 years peaking at 15.64% in 1981.  Paul Fed Chair Volcker got credit for beating inflation by raising rates to an unsustainable level and that was it. Rates then fell into March 2020 with a yield of .5%. Since then, the 39-year up cycle of rates has resumed. The ten-year rate, as mentioned, has climbed 10x fold since 2020 to 5%.  Powell, the last FED Chair followed the market of low rates for too long.  Now all that has changed. The new FED Chair and Governors unanimously voted to raise the overnight FED lending rate by a quarter point to the 3.75-4.0 % range.

My contention is that the FED simply follows market rates.  Interest rate futures are officially traded at the Chicago Board of Trade. CBT has now merged with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange ot form the CME.  The CME trades all maturities from 3-month bills to 30-year bonds. This year that market has raised the two-year note rate from 3.4 to 4.6%. Is anyone surprised the FED finally got on board with their first increase since 2023?

Yes, Trump was surprised but plainly he does not understand capital markets.

After a sustained move in one direction, markets pause and re-group. That is how happening with bonds and crude oil.  Interest rates have pulled back a slight bit.  We should expect rates to fixate around this new high level for some time before moving higher still.

Thirty-year mortgage rates have now reached 7%. Housing sales have slowed.

West Texas Intermediate Crude WTIC has risen from $75 in nearly August to just over $100 this month.  Prices are now hugging the psychological level of $100. Iran is weakened but shows few signs of giving into US demands to open Hormuz.  The CEO of Chevron, Mike Wirtz, suggests that supply chain interruptions will keep crude prices high for some time. That is surely a better prediction than the White House claim of oil prices falling after the mid-term elections.

The DOW has fallen from 54,500 in early August to 51,687 today. That matches the August rise of interest rates, there is a conection.  No one seems to notice. That is a 3,000 point fall in round numbers. Its uptrend line has fallen. Expect lower stock prices as a result of higher interest rates making safe T bills and CDs more attractive.

FED Chair Marsh quarter point increase is not going to, as Gerald Ford put it, Whip Inflation Now. That was a famous button from his administration. Expect higher inflation and interest rates and lower stock prices.

SA Bookkeeper Sentenced to 16 Years

 9/16/2026

 

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced former San Antonio bookkeeper Monica Marie Padilla to more than 13 years in prison after she admitted to stealing from five employers, including one that hired her while she was awaiting trial on earlier federal fraud charges. 

 

Padilla, 49, stole a combined $595,585 from the employers between 2021 and 2025 and was ordered by U.S. District Judge Jason Pulliam to pay $468,053 in restitution.

Court records show she used bookkeeping positions to divert vendor payments, make unauthorized credit card purchases and transfer client funds into bank accounts she controlled.

Padilla is one of several San Antonio-area bookkeepers and financial employees who have faced accusations of stealing from employers in recent years.

RELATED: How a bookkeeper with a long criminal history keeps getting jobs — and landing in more trouble

‘Career-long scam artist’

In a statement to the court Wednesday, Padilla told the judge that she has changed during her time in custody, thanks to therapy sessions with a counselor. She said she defrauded her employers out of a desire to support her family, a responsibility that fell on her as a teenager when her father died.

 

“I have learned the hard way,” she said. “The only thing in my life I’ve ever wanted was my family, and my daughters are my everything.”

She turned to face the gallery, where Superior Fence Co. owner Roger Gilbert was sitting. She stole thousands from his business while employed as a bookkeeper between 2021 and 2022.

Padilla asked Gilbert for forgiveness several times during her statement — he did not respond.

 

“She caused a great bit of pain and mental anguish in my life as well as my business, and she’s a career-long scam artist,” Gilbert said during a victim impact statement. “I want to protect the community from this happening again.”

READ MORE: San Antonio bookkeeper strikes plea deal on charges she stole from employers

Padilla and her attorney, Tim Molina, asked the judge for mercy, citing her daughter’s recent diagnosis with a neurological disorder. 

In his sentencing decision, Pulliam cited what he called “a pattern of the same type of behavior.”

“There have been second chances and third chances and other opportunities to adjust your behavior accordingly,” he told her.

He sentenced her to 13 years and four months, above the sentencing guidelines of nine years to 11 years and three months but less than the 20 years prosecutors were seeking.

How the case unfolded

Padilla originally was indicted in 2023 on charges that she stole nearly $500,000 from two San Antonio employers. But the case took a dramatic turn after prosecutors alleged she stole from another employer while free on bond awaiting trial.

 

Prosecutors say Padilla went to work in late 2024 for a Las Vegas-based bookkeeping company that served clients across the country. As a condition of her pretrial release, she was required to disclose the pending charges to any employer if the job involved access to financial accounts.

Instead, prosecutors alleged she concealed the pending charges, used her bookkeeping position to access clients' financial information and diverted nearly $29,000 into bank accounts she controlled.

Padilla had been free on a $20,000 unsecured bond, but a judge revoked her bail in March 2025 and ordered that she remain jailed pending trial. Five months later, Padilla pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud, one count of mail fraud and one count of money laundering.

The original case centered on Padilla’s work for Superior Fence and J&R Tile.

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According to court records, Padilla worked for Superior Fence from June 2021 until about May 2022, where she was responsible for paying vendors. Prosecutors said she persuaded the owners to abandon credit card payments by falsely claiming vendors would no longer accept them.

Instead of paying the vendors, she routed the money into bank accounts she controlled while making it appear in the company’s accounting records that the vendors had been paid. One transaction involved a $42,525 wire transfer to a bank outside Texas.

Superior Fence later sued Padilla and obtained a judgment of roughly $380,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. During that case, the company alleged Padilla falsely represented herself as a certified public accountant despite never qualifying as one.

After leaving Superior Fence, Padilla went to work as a bookkeeper for J&R Tile. Prosecutors alleged she made unauthorized personal purchases using company credit cards issued to the owner and other employees. The mail-fraud count stemmed from the shipment of a $216 outdoor movie projector to her San Antonio home.

While awaiting trial in the original case, Padilla obtained a bookkeeping job with the Las Vegas company. Prosecutors alleged that employment became the basis for a second fraud scheme that sent her back to jail.

Sep 16, 2026

Annasofia Scheve

Reporter

Annasofia Scheve covers crime and breaking news for the Express-News. She can be reached at Annasofia.Scheve@express-news.net.

Annasofia has bachelor's degrees in journalism and political science from the University of Missouri. She is an Ohio native, and wrote for Cincinnati Magazine and the Cincinnati Enquirer before joining the Express-News in 2023.

Patrick Danner

Senior Reporter

Patrick Danner is a business reporter for the San Antonio Express-News. He can be reached at pdanner@express-news.net

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