Last week was a short but busy one on the economic front, with several reports on housing and a look at durable goods demand. This week, we’ll see a wide range of information on where the economy is going.

As I try to do a couple of times a year, let’s take a break and think about all the things we have to be grateful for. It has been proven that being grateful is one of the best ways to make your life better—to be both happier and more successful.

Am I anticipating a Santa Claus rally? Today, I appeared on CNBC's Power Lunch to discuss what we might see in the market over the next couple of weeks. 

The last post in this series was about the old world, one that was dominated and defined by politics both between and within nation-states. Indeed, the nation-state was the defining entity of the period, with political borders determining economic relationships. But even within nation-states, economic actors were largely constrained by political forces, in the form of laws, regulations, and borders. It was a much smaller world from the perspective of most companies. Your competitors came from your industry, in your country. You knew them, they knew you, and you were all pretty much playing by the same rules and subject to the same constraints.

Last week started off with looks at prices and whether inflation is picking up. This week is a short but busy one on the economic front, with reports on housing and durable goods demand.

I closed my post two days ago with the observation that the now world—the world optimized around economics—has changed significantly from what came before it. It really became different this time, within the lifetime of most of the readers of this blog.

I want to take a break today from the next world discussion to check in on the stock market. Since the pullback in October and the bounce after the midterms, we have seen a slow and continuous decline. I have been hearing more questions and concerns, so let’s take a look at what is going on.

Given slowing economic growth, are we looking at a recession? Yesterday, I appeared on CNBC's Power Lunch to discuss what we might expect as we head toward year-end.

We're seeing increased volatility in the market, but what's the outlook for 2019? I discussed this and more (my segment begins at 50:51) yesterday on Bloomberg TV's Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas. 

As we discussed yesterday, the world is always changing. But in the past couple of years, there has been a growing sense that the changes we’re seeing now go beyond what is normal. From an investment and economic perspective, it seems these changes might be getting systemic enough that, over the next decade or so, it really will be different this time. To understand what might happen next, though, it is important to understand where we are starting from—as the next world will inevitably evolve from the now world.