The Lagging Truth

The essays

One essay a week translating the research into plain English — what trailing averages actually do, and what it costs when institutions trust them. Published on Substack; every essay links back to the paper and code behind it.

This Won’t Make You Rich. But It Might Help You Avoid Losing It All.

The strategy I didn’t mean to build. I went looking for something aggressive; the research led somewhere else. Live since September 14 — and a poll.

The Obvious Fix

A package that has been "out for delivery" since 7:04 this morning, and what happened when I tested the fix everyone shouts at the Social Security formula.

The Loop

A conversation that keeps colliding, an instruction they give fighter pilots, and what happens when the rescue finally arrives — all at once.

The Phantom

A traffic jam with no wreck, a man with a sandwich, and why the bill never finds its way home.

The Flu Alarm Is Armed — and This Winter, It Gets Graded

A stock-market tool beat the standard flu alarm by two months, on average, across 27 seasons. Two predictions about this winter are already frozen.

The Reflection and the Star

A speedometer, a rejection letter, and the optical illusion hiding in every chart.

No Recession Detected — Yet

A registered detector, recomputed weekly from public unemployment filings, currently reads all quiet. What it watches — and what it will say first when that changes.

Perfectly, Uselessly Correct

A restaurant rating, a retirement cheque, and the strange harm done by numbers that are exactly right.

The Lagging Truth Series

Quality of Information