January 9 has range. It gave us The Simpsons* *in 1991, the iPhone in 2007, and a memorable Bitcoin moment in 2018. Adaptation, focus, and speculation all wrapped into one calendar square.
Curious what January 9, 2026 adds to the list…
SMART Goalsfor People Tired of Lying to Their Own SpreadsheetsIs the housing market broken…
**or just taking a smoke break?***Smaller pies. Fewer toppings. Bigger problems.**The future of pizza is atoss-up.*Stranded in Paradise,
Courtesy of the FAA****Oil,power, and a very loudforeign policy shiftwalk into a bar…You’re not bad at taxes.
**You’re just doing them the lazy way.****And From Around the Web:**Old Fights, Bad Balance Sheets, and Very Angry Gamblers
*by *
Every January, business owners promise themselves this is the year everything clicks. New goals. Fresh energy. A spreadsheet that looks impressive… until it quietly disappears by March.
This article calls that out for what it is: wishful thinking dressed up as planning. It breaks down why vague goals, optimistic math, and last-minute financing are the fastest way to stall growth. Then it walks through a better approach: SMART goals that are actually specific, cash flow forecasts that don’t lie to you, and funding plans made before things get urgent. Less motivation poster. More adult supervision.
The housing market limps into 2026 after a 2025 that was brutal by almost any historical standard. **High prices, high rates, and buyers who decided “maybe later” froze activity. **On paper, last year’s home sales look ugly. In reality, the picture may improve faster than expected. A stronger spring buying season is possible even if mortgage rates stay north of 6%.
Washington is paying attention. DT47’s administration wants to jump-start housing, with early chatter focused on affordability and the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Investors are already placing bets. Both stocks exploded in 2025 on speculation alone.
Meanwhile, the industry itself is consolidating fast. Rocket Companies scooped up Mr. Cooper and Redfin, Compass is circling Anywhere Real Estate, and Alphabet is experimenting with home listings inside Google search. Translation: buying a house is becoming more centralized, more tech-driven, and less charming by the day.
Why this matters:Housing may look dead, but policy shifts, consolidation, and investor money suggest it’s more “reloading” than collapsing.
Pizza is losing its grip on fast food. Sales at pizza chains have been mostly flat since 2023, while the rest of fast food keeps moving. Once the silver medalist of U.S. chain dining, pizzerias slid from second place in the ’90s to sixth last year. Coffee and Mexican spots now outnumber them, and the total number of pizza joints has shrunk since peaking in 2019.
Higher menu prices aren’t helping. (Neither are GLP-1 drugs, which have quietly turned America into a nation of smaller appetites.) When people DO order pizza, they’re buying smaller pies with fewer toppings. Increasingly, the competition isn’t the shop across the street. It’s whatever protein-forward bowl shows up via Uber Eats.
Big chains are adjusting. Domino’s is leaning hard into promos and holding up better than most. Yum Brands is openly considering unloading Pizza Hut after two straight years of sales declines. And California Pizza Kitchen just sold for $300M, a sharp drop from the $470M price tag paid back in 2011. Tragic. Some blame inflation. Others blame pineapple.
The takeaway?Pizza isn’t dying, but the easy-growth era is over, and brands that don’t adapt are getting eaten alive.
A surprise U.S. operation to capture Nicolás Maduro briefly turned parts of the Caribbean into a no-fly zone. The Federal Aviation Administration shut down civil air traffic over several islands due to “safety-of-flight risks,” stranding thousands of holiday travelers who suddenly discovered that paradise is less relaxing when you can’t leave.
The restriction lifted late Sunday, but the cleanup took days. American Airlines added nearly 7,000 seats and 43 flights. United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Southwest Airlines followed suit. Meanwhile, travelers oscillated between refreshing flight apps and insisting they were “totally fine, really,” while not being fine at all.
Private jet owners with crews already nearby escaped quickly once airspace reopened. **Everyone else learned a hard lesson in aviation hierarchy. **Charter flyers were stuck thanks to bottlenecks at key hubs, and fractional-ownership customers found that “partial jet ownership” does not include emergency evacuation privileges. Even Leonardo DiCaprio missed the Palm Springs International Film Festival after getting stranded. We’re confident he endured.
In summary:Geopolitics doesn’t care about your return flight, and even luxury travel has a pecking order.
Markets usually yawn at geopolitics. This time, they might want coffee. The U.S. arrest of Nicolás Maduro signals a more aggressive posture from DT47, with oil front and center. Venezuela nationalized its oil and gas decades ago, chasing out U.S. majors like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, who sued for billions and collected far less. Today, Chevron is the lone American operator, hanging on via a special license.
Yes, Venezuela sits atop roughly 300 billion barrels of proven reserves. No, that alone won’t lure U.S. capital back. Investors want stability, courts that function, and governments that pay their bills. Removing Maduro is one chapter, not the book.
**Zoom out and the message sharpens. **A revived Monroe Doctrine vibe says the Western Hemisphere is America’s lane. Colombia’s leader has been warned to tread carefully. Mexico’s president is publicly framed as outmatched by cartels. Greenland gets floated as better off under U.S. control. **Cuba is name-checked as possibly next. **This isn’t subtle diplomacy. It’s a statement.
Even if this doesn’t spark a rush to classic safe havens,** it props up the case for precious metals and forces markets to price in a more assertive U.S. abroad.** Venezuela becomes the test: can military muscle deliver durable economic outcomes, not just headlines? Success or not, it’s not something that markets can ignore. Trump’s new doctrine is clear. Speak loudly and carry a big stick.
The takeaway?When foreign policy gets louder, markets eventually stop pretending it’s background noise.
by Matthew R. Meehan
I wrote a Forbes piece in early 2023 after using cost segregation myself. It’s now 2026, and the math hasn’t changed. If you own commercial real estate and you’re depreciating it the “normal” way, you’re almost certainly overpaying taxes for no good reason.
Cost segregation breaks a building into parts that wear out faster than the building itself. Wiring. Plumbing. HVAC. Fixtures. Floors. **Instead of dragging depreciation out over 27.5 or 39 years, you accelerate a chunk of it upfront. **That lowers taxable income and improves cash flow when it actually matters
A few key changes to note:
Bonus depreciation is phasing down,
**so timing matters more.**The IRS doesn’t love sloppy studies, so pros matter.
Cash flow is tighter, which makes early deductions more valuable.
**If you’re reinvesting in your business and skipping tools like this, that’s not conservative. *** That’s lazy planning. *For the full breakdown,
**And if you want help with cost segregation or figuring out if it even makes sense for your property? **Book a call with me, and we’ll walk through the numbers, the timing, and whether it’s worth doing or not.
Ground Combat, Groundhog Day:The Pentagon is kicking off asix-month review on, a full decade after the military already opened those jobs. Officials say it’s about “whether women belong in ground combat rolesstandards”and “effectiveness.” Critics say it’s**reopening a fight everyone already sat through once.**Either way, thousands of service records are getting dusted off so Washington can argue about the same thing… again.**Too Much Debt, Pass:**Warner Bros looked at Paramount’s revised bid,saw $87 billion in debt duct-taped together, and saidabsolutely not. Instead, it’seven if it’s smaller on paper. Turns out “trust us” isn’t a financing strategy.sticking with Netflix’s cleaner, less heart-attack-inducing offer,**Fine Print Beats Firepower:**Polymarket tradersbetting on a U.S. invasion of Venezuela after Nicolás Maduro was captured.thought they hit the jackpot**Polymarket disagreed, saying a “snatch-and-extract” of a sitting president doesn’t count as an invasion,**and refused to settle millions in winning bets.Nothing humbles a gambler faster than a definition.
