Saturday Broadcast 8

Saturday broadcast, 7/17 - 7/23.

Key topics:

✔️ ICYMI news.
✔️I know I'll be labeled an Eeyore, but I gotta be honest: some people are not gonna make it. 🤷🏻‍♀️
✔️I feel like I'm in a bad 2007-2008 time loop here. Food banks are overwhelmed. The housing market has been insane. Layoffs and hiring freezes are on the rise. Sound familiar?
✔️ A large number of people are working more than one full-time job to make ends meet in the face of inflation. But hey: people are doin' great! 😒
✔️At the end of the day, you can only do so much. If someone has ears to hear and they're not listening, it is what it is.


Links I discuss in this episode:

https://www.coffeeandquinoa.com/2013/04/moosewood-cookbook-borscht/

https://apnews.com/article/hungerfoodbanksinflation-4fd5d6fb5879eaecc3000fe2b73df006

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-world-war-western-nations-putin-ally-serbia-aleksandar-vucic-1724605

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/more-americans-hold-down-two-jobs-4845041/

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/alerts-watches-and-warnings

https://www.newsweek.com/geomagnetic-storm-coronal-mass-ejection-this-week-1725502

https://apnews.com/article/explosions-nevada-climate-and-environment-39d99d8c144d208f4e437d69b8f9fa98

https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2022/04/04/when-the-pendulum-swings/

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/jobless-claims-climb-amid-layoffs-4845209/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/blackstone-puts-finishing-touches-on-record-real-estate-vehicle-11658349652

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/want-a-job-drop-off-your-resume-irl-4848065/


Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/
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Siren courtesy of Pixabay. 

Transcript

0:06

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. So I am recording this portion of the Saturday broadcast on the previous Saturday. So it's the evening of July 16. Apparently now the prime minister of Estonia has said that she is resigning and they're going to convene parliament to form some new type of government. not totally sure what's going on there. But we can sort of add this to the list of political upheaval that's going on in the world. Also, a day or two ago, the Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, said that as far as he's concerned, Russia is already in a world war with the West. And his quote was, we should understand that amid the World War, all the talks that it's a regional or a local war must be dropped. The entire Western world is fighting against Russia, via Ukrainians. It is a global conflict, he said, I'll drop a link to that in newsweek.com, so that you can read it for yourself. But this is yet again, more signs of trouble brewing changes afoot and trouble brewing on the geopolitical spectrum. Back here in the good ol US of A in the Midwest, my local Walmart, same kind of dynamic as it has been, the pain reliever aisle is looking more and more wiped out, they've raised the price of ibuprofen. So the little bottle that had been 98 cents is now just $1. Even, that's not a huge price increase, to be fair, but it just seemed a little random, because the little bottles of aspirin and the little bottles of acetaminophen are both still 98 cents, so I'm kind of not sure what's up with that. But it was really picked over. Same thing as it has been the large kind of economy sized or family sized bottles of like ibuprofen, acetaminophen, all gone. The only bottles you can find now are the tiny ones that only have a few pills in them. I am not getting on here giving you any kind of advice at all. I'm just giving you my opinion. And in my opinion, if it were me, if I had some type of medication like that, that I really depended on, I would want to make sure that I had enough of it. feminine hygiene section looks wiped out again, there were still some pads, very, very few tampons, and the ones that were left were the more expensive brand name kind that are like seven or $8 per box. The economical shampoo and conditioner was back in stock that looked pretty good. I was able to find a water pitcher kind of like those Britta pitchers, I was able to find that half off. So I actually was able to get it for like $12 It was originally like 24 or whatever, you know how Walmart does their prices, 2498 or somesuch. But I was able to get it for like 12 bucks, which felt like a great deal. So there are still some deals to be had not really so much in the food section per se. But if you're if you need consumer goods, if there's something like that filtration unit or some shelving units, anything of that flavor that you still need, you may be able to get a good deal on it right now. The Produce Section was very hit or miss. I'm I'm thinking about making up a pot of Bosch and then canning it I got a feel like I got my mind. Right, you know, I've kind of been able to integrate some lessons on proper canning, I hope that I want to experiment with it and make sure that I'm going to do it correctly and not accidentally give myself botulism. So that's one of the things I've been thinking about doing. I was able to find some red cabbage, no beets, I mean, that's the wrong time of year for them anyway, so I just bought a couple of cans of sliced beets for that. But that is some good wintertime eating. You know, it really is if you've never had any there's a recipe that I really like I will drop a link to it in case you ever want to make it for yourself. It is really, really good. A lot of other produce though, either wasn't there or it was very, very picked over there were a few pretty sad looking eggplants, no squash, no zucchini, the plums and peaches that I talked about last week all gone. A few strawberries that were kind of sad looking. And there were some really depressing looking apples too. So the produce section was was kind of random and iffy. Also the section where they keep like the box dinners where you can get like hamburger helper and meal kits that was obliterated. I mean, there were like maybe three or four boxes of hamburger helper left. Speaking of food, even though we are being told everyone is doing fine. People are doing great. They have 1000s of dollars in savings. The price of gas is down like 10 or 15 cents a gallon. Wow. We even though we're being told all of this on July 14, so two days ago The Associated Press published an article titled long lines are back at us food banks as inflation hits high. This is on the AP. Alright, this is not fringe left or fringe right. Nobody can tell me well that this must have just come from some tinfoil hat conspiracy website nobody ever heard of. It's from the freakin Associated Press. I will drop a link to it of course so you can read it for yourself and I would encourage you to do so. I'll read some of it for you now. Long lines are back at food banks around the US is working Americans overwhelmed by inflation turned to handouts to help feed their families. With gas prices soaring along with grocery costs. Many people are seeking charitable food for the first time and more are arriving on foot. inflation in the US is at a 40 year high and gas prices have been surging since April 2020, with the average cost nationwide briefly hitting $5 A gallon in June. Rapidly rising rents and an end to federal COVID-19 Relief have also taken a financial toll. The food banks which had started to see some relief as people returned to work after pandemic shutdowns are struggling to meet the latest need even as federal programs provide less food to distribute. Grocery Store donations wane and cash gifts don't go nearly as far. I'm going to skip down and read a little more now. Charitable food distribution has remained far above amounts given away before the Coronavirus pandemic, even though demand tapered off somewhat late last year. Feeding America officials say second quarter data won't be ready until August. But they are hearing anecdotally from food banks nationwide. That demand is soaring. I'm going to break in just long enough to say this is one of the reasons why I am so passionate on the airwaves on my blog on my Patreon about telling everyone by the time that something is made, quote official, by the time that political pundits or some talking head on the news goes on TV or the radio or wherever and tells you hey, we are officially in a poop storm. It's too late. You've waited too late. At that point. I'm going to skip down and read a little bit more. Food bank executives said the sudden surge in demand caught them off guard. Last year we had expected a decrease in demand for 2022 because the economy had been doing so well said Michael flood CEO for the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. This issue with inflation came on pretty suddenly. A lot of these people who are working and did okay during the pandemic and maybe even saw their wages go up said flood but they have also seen food prices go up and beyond their budgets and quote I'm gonna skip down and read a little bit more. All fest said as many as 10% of the people now seeking food are first timers and a growing number are showing up on foot rather than in cars to save gas. The food they get from us is helping them save already stretched budgets for other expenses like gas, rent, diapers and baby formula he said. Meanwhile, food purchases by the bank have jumped from a monthly average of 250,000 before the pandemic to as high as 1.5 million now because of food prices. rocketing gasoline costs forced the bank to increase its fuel budget by 66%. All fest said and quote, I really, truly and sincerely do not want any of you listening to this broadcast to be caught off guard. And I understand how easily that could happen. Because when you turn on the news or you look at social media and all you hear all the freakin time is labor shortage, labor shortage. There's two open jobs for every one unemployed person. Unemployment is 3.6%. Well, the great resignation is gonna go on forever. You can just hippity hop, hop, Hippity, hop, hop all over the job market and get a big fat raise every time you leap. When that's all that you hear and all that you see. It's kind of like an echo chamber, right? I mean, it's like a labor shortage, labor shortage, labor shortage. So it would be easy for someone to be caught off guard, by the time that some talking head gets on the TV and is like, Ah, we're in really quite a giant mess and unemployment is more like a 10%. By the time that happens, people are going to go out of their minds. You know, I remember hearing stories like this and seeing the news reports during the Great Recession. People would be on TV crying, talking about how they needed food from the food bank for the first time and they couldn't get baby diapers, they couldn't get formula and it wasn't because of the supply chain issues it was because they couldn't afford it. And here we are again. Here we are, again. As I've said before, and will continue to say I feel that this is an auspicious time to get very careful about who you're listening to. Where are you consuming your information? Are you in an echo chamber? And that goes by the way for Doom scrolling. I personally find that term to be a bit pejorative and condescending I kind of put it in the same category. If I'm just being honest, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm opining here for your entertainment only, I put it in a similar category as toxic positivity, or toxic optimism. Because toxic positivity and toxic optimism, really push for people to believe everything's gonna work out, everyone's going to be fine, everything is great. And then give yourself confirmation bias. No matter what's going on around you, you need to keep that positive attitude and it can also morph into toxic gratitude. You may be having a completely lousy day, you don't feel very grateful for anything in your life in that moment. And I feel like that's okay. I'm not saying you should walk around like a perpetual er. But I think we've all had those days where maybe you have a terrible migraine or you've had a big fight with your spouse or your kid is in trouble at school again, you're just like, Tammet I think we all have days like that we just have those damnit. days where we feel like the best thing that could happen would be to shut the day off and go to sleep. And I don't feel like gratitude should become a prison. I think sometimes people use the term Doom scrolling as a form of toxic positivity. I think it's sort of a cousin to toxic positivity. No, you should not watch 24/7 News. No, you should not try to seek out the worst of humanity all day every day you want for what purpose? Would you be doing that? I believe that it's good to get outside, get some sunshine, some fresh air, some vitamin D, maybe not in the heat of the day when it's like 110 outside, but at some point during the day, take a break, get away from all devices, get away from all screens. In my mind, keeping an eye on the markets and just being generally aware of what's going on is not doom scrolling. Now, if you're spending, I don't know, 16 hours a day doing nothing but obsessively consuming negative news that might be a problem. But I think sometimes anyone who consumes any amount of information at all other than BS celebrity gossip gets labeled as a doom scroller. We want to be careful of not getting into an echo chamber, whether it is in fact Doom scrolling, or whether it's celebrity gossip and positivity, labor shortage, labor shortage, labor shortage, be willing to consume some information and some intel that might be outside your normal sphere of reference, I have the sneaking suspicion that you might thank yourself later for that. It is Monday, July 18. Yesterday, I spent some time experimenting with my pressure canning, I think I finally got the hang of it. My first tried did not go so well was having difficulty getting the pressure canner to actually achieve the appropriate pressure. So I did some troubleshooting. And I think knock on wood, things are looking good at this point. So this is another skill in my arsenal. And I'm pretty proud of it. I also took a little bit of time to answer some viewer mail. And that episode is up and running. Apparently, this week, there's supposed to be some kind of geomagnetic storm that could potentially interfere with satellites and communication abilities as well as potentially the power grid. Now if you're wondering, Well, where did you hear that some weirdo in a tinfoil hat tell you that in a back alley? Did you see it on some fringe left or fringe right website? No, you can go to noaa.gov and read it for yourself. I'll drop a link, you can also find an article about it in Newsweek. So who knows what will happen with that where I'm out in the Midwest, we're under that heat dome. This week, we're going to have air temperatures 100 810. I have no idea how bad the heat index will get on those days, but I'm really not looking forward to it. So the last thing that I want to contemplate Is that some kind of geomagnetic storm could come through and potentially wreak havoc on the power grid, which undoubtedly is going to be strained enough from everyone running their air conditioners just trying to do what they can to survive. Over on CNBC, we have headlines today such as Wall Street rally runs out of steam, with the Dow erasing a jump of more than 350 points who didn't see that coming. homebuilder sentiment takes historic plunge in July as buyers pull back. Also who didn't see that coming. Goldman CEO David Solomon says inflation is deeply entrenched in the global economy. Also not sure who wouldn't see that one coming either. Also from Goldman Sachs, they are looking to reinstate year end job cuts as economic outlook Dems been warning y'all about that? Over on Yahoo Finance. It's a similar scene. We have headlines such as Roger McNamee or McNamee not sure how to pronounce it. We're in a generational bear market. According to one legendary investor the market could still recover but will likely face systemic obstacles on the journey back stocks turn negative after report Apple will slow hiring. Slow hiring we're gonna cut back on hiring Apple latest tech leader to slow hiring plans, Netflix q2 earnings preview what to expect? I doubt it's gonna be great substack CEO details broadly compelling model layoffs and media growth X gap CEO never seen this much discounting in retail. Meanwhile, Europe is facing some of the same challenges with this intense, seemingly unrelenting heat. The Guardian has called it a heat apocalypse, I think Britain may see its hottest day ever. I think they've had to issue like heat warnings and heat advisories for the first time here in the Midwest and the United States. We're fairly accustomed to them. They do happen throughout the summer, but not to this degree where it's just so hot like it like the Midwest has become Death Valley. And it's just day after day after day after day of unrelenting heat and no rain. And I think that over in France and Spain, they're having these out of control wildfires, which is also really terrible. So, I mean, then you compound this with whatever kind of geomagnetic solar storm is getting ready to happen. And this is just more things, okay, that I put into my personal bucket of what is going on in the world. We're seeing all these geopolitical changes happening without a lot of explanation, quite frankly. Then also, we're having this unrelenting fires of hell heat. And it's definitely enough to make you scratch your head and wonder what's going on. Meanwhile, over on LinkedIn, we have this article titled more Americans hold down two jobs. And I feel like they're sort of catching up. Finally, to reality. I talked about this on the last Saturday broadcast that I was hearing whispers on the wind, if you will, that one of the reasons why the jobs report was kind of manipulated and not completely true in some people's opinions, is because some of the people who are employed right now are over employed, meaning they're working more than one full time job, not necessarily because they want to, but because they feel like they have to. Naturally I will drop a link to this so you can check it out for yourself and I'll read the blurb for you now. A record number of Americans hold two full time jobs assign the fastest inflation and almost 41 years is driving them to work as many as 70 hours a week. Some 426,000 People had two roles as of June the most since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking this statistic in 1994 surging consumer prices have met real wages fell by 3.6% over the past year, hitting those in lower wage hospitality and service jobs the hardest. The workers who spend more on essentials such as gas are more likely to be required to show up for work and commute. In quote. One of the things that I find intriguing is that someone who responded in the comment section to this article said, What happens when the recession finally hits? And I thought, dude, dude, do is the recession gonna have to send you a monogrammed invitation? What what are you waiting on? What do you mean when the recession finally hits? How bad isn't going to be when the recession finally hits? Wake up? We've made it to Tuesday. Now, although for some reason all day, I have been convinced that it was Wednesday. I don't know maybe I'm just kind of wishing things along to progress a little farther ready for the weekend? I'm not sure. Over on CNBC, we have headlines such as dow rallies more than 700 points in rebound as traders bet that the bottom is in. Underneath that we see what recession Evercore says after bank earnings show consumers are paying their debts. Well, that's awesome, isn't it? So people are getting into debt, but they're paying it off. People are doing great. We also see Netflix only loses 970,000 subscribers in second quarter after mourning of a loss of 2 million. Oh, okay. Well, I guess that's great, then. This is kind of reminding me of how the gas prices are still so high. But like if they go down by a nickel or a dime, we're all supposed to be like really excited by that. And it's like, okay, well, that's better than I guess going up by a nickel or a dime, but it's still just a nickel or a dime. You know, they still need to come down substantially from where they're at. Over on Yahoo Finance we read turn around Tuesday, s&p and Dow All gain more than 2.4% Nasdaq rallies 3.1%. US stocks soared on Tuesday. And in the picture they have that corresponds with the article. There's a group of people smiling and looking very happy. But then there's one guy that's off to the side that's looking at the people smiling, like they're completely crazy. And that guy is like a complete and total mood for me. Twitter granted five day trial in October in case against Elon Musk. Little Caesars sees more orders as chains lean on value. The feds next interest rate hike might be the biggest in decades. So we asked six real estate pros. What might this do to mortgage rates? Hmm, well, I'm not a real estate pro, but I would assume they're probably going to go up. Over on the LinkedIn side panel we have Twitter wins expedited trial versus musk. Subscription sleepers, ghosting apps. Millennials top work want meaning the loneliness of the summer intern. Vimeo CEO announces layoffs, layoffs, fueling summer of angst. Hmm, imagine that. Amazon cracks down on Facebook reviews is La the healthiest place Nope. COVID could heat up summer again, workers test return to Office mandates. In terms of news that you might not have heard today, there was an explosion at the Hoover Dam. Apparently it was a transformer that burst into flames. It is being said that there was no risk to the power grid and that no one was hurt. To be honest, had it not been captured on video by a tourist, I don't know that anybody would have heard about it. I'm not sure that this wouldn't have been something that might have just disappeared and never even made it to the news cycle. So I'm sure everything's fine. I am sure this is another situation of Nothing to see here. People move along, move along. Everyone is doing great. So I'm not sure who these people are that are paying off their debts. And they're completely financially solvent and life and their personal economy is just peaches and cream. This is another Jerry Seinfeld moment for me where I'm looking around going, Who are these people? Where are they at? Where are those people at? Because gas is still high food prices are still high every time you go to the grocery store, it's more expensive than it was the week before. So who are these people that are paying off their debts, they're being very financially responsible, they're in a financially solvent position, I would really love to know because that's not matching up with what I personally am seeing. I have a friend. And ever since the springtime, anytime he posts on social media, he's traveling somewhere. And I'm not talking about little day trips, or you hey, we took the kids to the zoo or we went to a park, we went and hung out at the lake today free of charge. That's not what I'm talking about. Sometimes he and the wife go off on couples vacations by themselves. And then the next thing you know, the whole family is getting together and taking an expensive vacation. And these are trips that involve getting on an airplane and flying somewhere to a resort, a destination and amusement park. So you have not only the expense of getting there, but the expense of the hotel and the expense of the destination or destinations while they're there. And I'm like, how are they affording this? You know, then you have on top of that the fact that they have to keep up with the Joneses, yuppie house, and the kids always have to have certain things. They're involved in a plethora of activities at school and you always see him dressed very nice. So where's this money coming from? It's possible that they won the lottery and didn't tell anyone. It's possible that Great Aunt Harriet died and left them with a pot of money and they are determined to spend it as fast as possible. Maybe Maybe it's also possible that the parents are footing the bill, his parents or her parents, they may be giving them cash and saying you know what you deserve to travel. You know, there is such a thing being touted as revenge travel, people who like to take vacations and they didn't get to during COVID and the lock downs. So now by God, they're going to get on that airplane and go somewhere. They're going to get on that cruise ship, they're going somewhere. Even if it's not that great of a destination when they arrived, they are going somewhere to get revenge against COVID and revenge against the lockdowns. So it could be maybe the parents or the in laws are footing the bill for all of this expensive travel. I would be willing to bet you know if somebody saw alright but put 10 bucks on the table and let's have a bet here, I would be willing to bet my $10 That probably every bit of this is going on credit cards, I bet that it's YOLO and FOMO. And while we were cooped up, we didn't get to go anywhere fun. So dammit, we're going to do that now, we're going to put it on a credit card and then assume that we're going to be able to pay for all this travel later. Here's the thing. What if you get laid off? What if you and your spouse or your partner both get laid off at about the same time? What if you get into a zero income situation? Where you get into whatever you can get from unemployment, which is typically not a lot? What if what if that happened, and then you had like eight or $10,000 of credit card debt from all these trips that you felt like you just had to have? What then what then I feel like at the risk of being labeled a gloom and doom or and an ER, if it were me, okay, in my opinion, if it were me, this would not be the time that I would want to go far away from home, it would not be the time that I would want to blow a bunch of money, it would not be the time that I want to run up credit card debt to do some kind of destination travel. Now, that's just me. That's the decision that I'm making for myself and my household, that that's probably not a wise decision to make at this point in time, not going to tell anybody else how to manage their life or their finances. Again, if it were me, Does that seem like a great idea at this particular juncture in time? Probably not. So today, it is Wednesday, the 20th. I pushed out an emergency episode today, I read an article over my lunch break about how many companies have had layoffs in the month of June and July. And I don't know how to explain it to you rationally. I just really felt compelled to put that out as an emergency broadcast. I just I felt so strongly that somebody needed to hear that this was meant to be somebody's wake up call, and it was too important to wait for a Saturday broadcast. Over on Yahoo Finance today we see headlines such as Tesla sells 75% of its Bitcoin as earnings meet expectations. Tesla reported its q2 earnings after the bell on Tuesday, meeting analysts expectations while disclosing the sale of $936 million worth of bitcoin. tech leads stocks higher for a second straight day. It's pretty intriguing considering how many of these layoffs have come from the tech sector. Scratches devil beard thoughtfully who wonder wonder what's going on there. United profits Miss estimates as costs rise. Goldman CEO one big upside to a slowing economy. Netflix loses 970,000 subscribers set to launch ad supported tier in 2023. Investors should be seeking measured optimism. analyst says Netflix user decline is actually good news. The Fed is upside down on inflation and that's a big risk. Over on the side panel for LinkedIn news, we have headlines such as Ford to cut 8000 jobs according to Bloomberg recruiter shreds cover letters. That's smart. Nashville's Asurion lays off 750 No more money for Mickey layoffs, latest companies making cuts. And that is the article that I would encourage you to read. If you missed the Wednesday emergency broadcast. It's only about five, five and a half minutes long. Go back to that and take a listen. I really feel like the price of ignorance at this point is too high a price to pay. You need to have your head on a swivel. military battles recruitment crisis, Central Ohio rocked by more layoffs. How sales fall to two year low. It's funny because I actually today, just this afternoon, I received a text message from a realtor that I had kind of sort of been working with I really didn't have a super great experience with the company that she was working for. But she sent me a text like hey, are you still interested? If we found anything that met the criteria? Are you still thinking about that real estate expansion? And I replied back? Yes, I haven't completely given up on it. It's just not right now. This is not the time with mortgage rates being so high and so many sellers here in the Midwest still not getting the memo. They still think that summer of 2022 is summer of 2021 and that buyers should show up with a bouquet of roses and a steak dinner and pay them more than asking price which is already too freakin high like No, not right now. Yes, theoretically, I'm still interested but No, not right now. Now if you just kind of peruse through Google News, you will see other headlines such as from Wired. Tick tock starts layoffs in company wide restructuring from TechCrunch lift lays off about 60 employees and shutters in house As car rentals program from Forbes recession fears fuel layoffs here are the major US ones so far. from Yahoo Finance, Goldman Sachs to slow hiring, bring back performance reviews as Wall Street layoff chatter grows. Yeah, so I've talked before about the old the good old fashioned Pip, the performance improvement plan. I think I may have talked about that on the broadcast where I was discussing what Zuck said about, hey, some of y'all shouldn't be here. Some of y'all need to just self select on out that door. One way that managers can get rid of employees and sort of have some kind of justification in doing it is to pull out the good old fashioned performance improvement plan. We're going to set standards high. And if you can't meet them, then well, we're not really laying you off because of the economy. Wink, wink. We're laying you off because you just couldn't meet our stringent requirements. Now you just don't make the grade anymore, pal. Man, yeah, I really don't want to sound like a broken record here. I don't. But as I just said, I feel like right now, ignorance, it comes at too high of a price tag, it's too high a price to pay. This is not the time to imagine that we are in sunshine, roses, lollipops and unicorns. Now, I'm also not recommending that you just sit and dwell on negativity all day long. That's not healthy either. You know, in tomorrow's broadcast that I'm going to publish on the podcast, I talked about reality Tran surfing, because I do think that deliberate creation, reality creation and really visualizing like, Okay, if if the economy is getting ready to go into a poop storm, what do I want my life to look like? What do I need to do to survive it? What can I do to not only survive it, but come out on the other side of it thriving? Are there investments that I could make? Is there debt that I could pay off? You know, as I've said many times, I am not an economist or a professional financial advisor or planner, I can't give anybody financial advice. I would suggest that you talk to a professional and if you need some insight on that this would be an auspicious time to get insight. What do I need to do to weather the storm? Is there something that I can do so that I come out of the storm in better shape than I went into the storm? I do think that that's important. And I feel that there is a true balance between toxic optimism everything's fine, everything's great. We'll never have another recession, we would never have another economic downturn, versus just getting superduper gloom and doom all the time. I would encourage any of you listening to keep your head on a swivel and stay alert, but not paranoid, not hyper vigilant, not scared to death all the time. Try as best you can to find the middle path. We've made it now to Thursday the 21st. And believe me, I wish that I were recording this part of the broadcast today with good news and sunshine and roses. But that's just simply not the case. Over on CNBC, we have headlines such as NASDAQ surges more than 1% in third straight positive session as Tesla shares pop. Tesla shares jump as second quarter report was better than analysts feared. Airlines temper flying ambitions after chaotic but profitable travel rebound. convenience store chain 711 cuts 880 corporate jobs as part of restructuring, consumers paying an average of $10,000 above normal prices for used cars. European Central Bank surprises markets with larger than expected rate hike its first in 11 years. Over on Yahoo Finance we find the big thing to watch in markets according to David Solomon, it's all about corporate profits, says Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO. Well no duh. No de tech soars for a third straight day NASDAQ gains 1.3% Why Amazon's acquiring a health care company for $3.9 billion. Domino's Pizza short on drivers using call centers. Elon Musk says remote workers are just pretending to work. Turns out he's sort of right. Oh lordy. AT and T falls most in 20 years after overdue bills, hit cashflow. And the little byline that's immediately underneath that says AT and T fell the most in 20 years after saying some customers are starting to put off paying their phone bills. But remember, people are doing great. Well nobody's defaulting on anything. People are not putting necessary expenses on a credit card and hoping they can pay it off later. No, no, they've just got a boatload of money in savings and they are doing Right, be s. And I think at this point, the Bs is mounted up so high, it's becoming impossible for people to ignore. And here's the thing, you know, I, I am never afraid to get on the air or in a blog post or whatever and say, I was wrong, I made a prediction it didn't come through, I was wrong. And I was really hoping that that would be the case here. You know, when this episode gets published on Saturday morning at 7am, central time, it will be the eighth Saturday broadcast that I've been doing to try to get the word out about what I've been seeing in the job market. What I've been seeing locally here in the Midwest at my stores, what I'm hearing the whispers on the when the beats on the street, you know, I did an interview with a job seeker under the condition of anonymity. You know, we had to use voice distorting software to make him sound like a human robot, and all of that, but it's like, I have been trying to get the word out as best I can. I've been commenting on other platforms on social media to try to help people wake up. And so I've got eight weeks of having done this over here on the podcast on I think it was April the fourth, I published a blog post titled when the pendulum swings, and I want to read a little bit of that for you now. But but this is not 2008 mortgage companies are not giving out loans willy nilly like they did back then. Hmm, perhaps not. But there's still chicanery that can happen behind the scenes. I've heard more than a few whispers of people with too high a DTI debt to income ratio still being approved for a loan, even though one slight hiccup in life could ruin their ability to make the house payment. But yeah, sure, keep preaching that this is not 2008 to give everyone some false confidence. Just as the pendulum will swing away from being an extreme seller's market with buyers willing to waive inspections, over bid offer based on photos without even going to the house, etc. This will happen with the job market as well. It's only a matter of time. This is one of the reasons why I have repeatedly said that job seekers should try to gain as much from the great resignation as possible, because the day will come when the market changes. This is not to say I believe the landscape of work will return to its previous pre COVID iteration. No, no, no, I think for most office workers, the genies out of the bottle and the idea of long commutes sitting in a cube farm and staring at the clock waiting to go home is anathema. Many companies will continue to embrace the idea that work can happen from anywhere and at any time as long as it's done well and on deadline. But just as the market can't sustain obscene real estate prices, I don't think the job market will remain so heavily candidate driven forever either. In the event of a recession, I think we will see the job market change much faster than if we don't have a recession. To return to my 2008 comparison. If you had a job you could even halfway tolerate at that time. You did whatever you had to do to keep it the fear of being unemployed and having no options was palpable. Presently the market is rewarding job hoppers much more so than job stayers in a recession, we will see that change if your boss is a jerk and you can find a dozen jobs you're qualified for on a cursory indeed search. Why put up with that nonsense. You make a move and try to find something better. It makes sense. But what happens when people won't even buy new underwear and quote, and then I go on to talk about how the former Federal Reserve head Alan Greenspan took a look at underwear as an economic indicator. Because if people were to the point where they wouldn't even buy new underwear, they would just keep dirty, worn holy underwear. It was a sign that the economy wasn't doing so good. I would love to sit here and tell you. That's not what's going on. That's not where we're at the magical Hail Mary pass is happening and everything is fine. I just don't think so. If you're not awake yet, I'm really not sure what's going to do it for you. I need to record a longer episode about this topic. But in my opinion, there's going to be some people that don't make it. Okay, there's gonna be some people that get wiped out financially. When you are living hand to mouth, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul, you have to go to the checkout stand and play credit card roulette to figure out which one is going to actually work so that you can buy your groceries or other necessity items. That kind of trouble is easy to get into. And it's hard to get out of. And if you think well, you've just always had an easy you don't know, then you don't know me. Okay, I went through hell when my first business failed. And I know when it's like to get to the register and play credit card roulette. I know what it's like to have to put stuff back because there's just no money. There is no money to pay for it. I know what it's like to be down here. Your last seven cents to have to look through couch cushions Old, old coat pockets under the floorboards of the car beg change from co workers. You know, I used to have to drive a toll road and there were times that I'd have to basically put myself on the pity of colleagues to give me 50 cents so I can ride the toll road home again. I know what that's like, and it sucks. But that kind of trouble financially is easy to get into and it's hard to get out of. And I feel like people burying their heads in the sand running up idiotic credit card debt to Yolo and FOMO and go have trips that are not really important right now. Some of these people are not going to make it in my opinion. They're just not. Over on LinkedIn, we finally finally have an admission. The article is titled jobless claims climb amid layoffs and the blurb reads new Unemployment Claims rose to their highest level in eight months as more companies announced job cuts. First time filings for jobless benefits increased by 7000 to 251,000 last week, while continuing claims jumped by 51,000 to 1.3 8 million, the biggest increase since November. The increase comes amid signs of a softening labor market. Ford is reportedly planning to let a quarter of its salaried US workforce go while companies from Lyft to Twitter are announcing cuts or hiring slowdowns. We also find that Google is doing a hiring freeze for two weeks. Yeah, okay. See, this is why I say by the time you are officially I'm using officially here in air quotes. By the time you're officially told whether it's from a news outlet, some talking head reporter, a political pundit, a politician, whoever, by the time you are officially told, Hey, we're actually in a recession or Oopsy. Daisy, the unemployment rate is not really 3.6% it's a lot higher. There's not really too open legit jobs for every one unemployed person. Oh, well, sorry, JK. By the time you're told anything official, it is too late. You have waited too late, in my opinion, to start making your provisions. Do you know what you would do in the event of a layoff? Do you know what you would do? Who would be your first phone call? I understand you're probably going to say spouse partner, mom, dad, best friend. Okay, but after you get that initial phone call out of the way to tell your closest person. Oh my god, guess what happened to me today? Who are you going to call about finding another job? Now this is definitely something I need to do a separate episode about. But I would encourage everyone okay, I cannot give you advice. This is not official advice. This is just me giving you my opinion. If it were me, I would want to have a game plan roughed out of who I would call in the event of a job loss in the event of no money coming in needing to float along I would want to know that I had some kind of game plan put together for basic survival. I beg of you, please be thinking ahead. use good judgment. Use good for thought. This is not the time to panic, but it's also not the time to bury your head in the sand and play pretend either. Be very careful of social media panderers and people that just want to dish out toxic positivity in my opinion, right now is not the time for that. In my opinion, right now is the time to be taking good care of yourself and making provision so that you know that you know that you know you could survive. It's Friday now and and it's definitely a TGIF kind of Friday. I'm happy to say that we did have a scant rain shower last night. I wish it had been more. It's definitely not enough to alleviate the flash drought. But some rain is better than no rain. On the downside I would say it made things so incredibly muggy today. I mean, it was like it's been like an inferno, but it's gone from being the dry desert heat to being like swamp heat today. Fortunately, there was a little bit of a breeze blowing this evening. And so when it was not the heat of the day, and that breeze was blowing, I was able to get out in the garden, dig in the dirt a little bit, pull some weeds, check my plants, and that's just good for the soul. It really is getting away from screens, having a break from the news and having a break from some of these idiots on social media. You know, this is definitely a topic that I need to cover with an episode all its own. It deserves to be a more fleshed out topic but at the risk of sounding Full Tilt gloom and doom, full tilt in your opening myself up for hate mail, yada yada whatever, I just I really don't even care about that anymore. I have to say. There's going to be some people that just don't make it. Okay, they they're they're not going to make it Come What May whatever type of economic poop storm is brewing, whatever is going on geopolitically, if we do, I hope to God we don't. But if we do get pulled into some kind of warfare, there's many people that do not make it. We are at a point, I think, in my opinion, where some some people they just their their ability to understand basic human reason, their reading comprehension, their listening skills are so poor, there's so subpar. It's like you can sit there and say ABCD and some idiot on social media or on the interwebs whatever will be like Well, you said XYZ and it's like, plainly I didn't, plainly I didn't and there's some people that I really think that they would argue with a signpost or they would sit and argue with a corpse just because they like to argue that much. And and I'm sitting back going Yeah, I don't think these people are gonna make it you know, some of these people are just so not on planet Earth. I don't know where they go to in their mind, but they're not on planet earth anymore. And I just don't think they're going to make it okay. All right, call me an ER and that's fine. Call me a pessimist. Okay, okay, that's fine, but some people are not going to make it. Alright, changing the subject. So speaking of wall to wall heat, I had gone into $1 General today to pick up a few odds and ends. I was not in there a long time. It felt like they had no air conditioning at all. I was sweating. I thought it was gonna pass out it was like suffocation heat in that store. And I asked the cashier Are you having troubles with the AC Are you not able to run it and she said no, the AC is running. We're just not allowed to run it very much like the landlord or whoever it is that owns the building that we're leasing doesn't want us to crank the air conditioning. So this is pretty much as good as it gets. It was miserable. In terms of what I was seeing all of the cheap toilet paper was gone. There was still toilet paper on the shelf. It was just the more expensive varieties, the cheap $1 stuff per pack, all that was gone. The $1 A bottle cheap laundry soap was almost gone. And a lot of the $1 a pop over the counter medicines. They were getting really really thinned out. So these are just things to consider not advocating that anybody spend their last dime or start hoarding just information for your entertainment only wink wink. Over on CNBC, we have headlines such as markets face what could be the most important week of summer with fed earnings and economic data. s&p 500 sheds nearly 1% Friday on SNAP lid tech sell off but finishes higher on week. Apple's new car software could be a Trojan horse into the automotive industry. Snap shares dive 39% following poor earnings report. Biden administration considering public health emergency for monkeypox over on Yahoo Finance it's a similar scene, snap crashes, 39% stocks and weak on a down note. We can be an oil supplier Biden advisor says snap is going through a near death experience. Now I kid you not I kid you not these two headlines are side by side. The one on the left side of the screen reads the last recession was more of a debt crisis for small business owners. Okay, next to that on the right hand side of the screen we read almost half of Americans expect to rack up more debt in the next six months. You can't make this stuff up. And then right below that there's another article title don't see it in my numbers. Amex meaning American Express the credit card doubts recession make you can't make it up. People are doing great. We're not seeing recession in our numbers says a credit card company and then right above and it says almost half of Americans expect to rack up more debt in the next six months. Oh, lordy, Lord. Before I conclude this broadcast, there are a couple of articles in particular that I want to highlight. Over on the Wall Street Journal. I think two days ago, there was an article published titled Blackstone puts finishing touches on record real estate vehicle. latest iteration of Maine Real Estate Fund is expected to total 30 point 3 billion when it is finalized. Nationally, I'll drop a link to it so that you can check it out for yourself. To sum up the findings of this article. Blackstone committed about $300 million of its own capital and then had a certain amount of money that was ponied up by investors so that the fund will total out at 30 Point 3 billion, the billion 30 point 3 billion when everything is said and done. And they have allocated these funds to purchase real estate. Hmm Now why might that be? You know if every if everybody is doing great if there's not going to be any kind of more market crash or some yo yo tried to convince me on a YouTube comment that he believes we're only going to have a five to 15% Drop in the market. But no crash is coming. People are doing great. Sure. Why would Blackstone be trying to put together that kind of money and allocate it to real estate, if everybody is doing great, just some food for thought there. If we scoot over to LinkedIn, I really feel like I'm back in 2007 2008. Because there's an article there called want a job drop off your resume in real life. And I'm like, did not just talk about that. I swear I did in the last Saturday broadcast, I was mentioning how the job that I had during the Great Recession, there would would be people that came in off the street all the time, and they would beg to drop off a resume to fill out an application and the receptionist would tell them we don't have anything open. We are not hiring. I'm happy to put the this information on file but we don't have anything to offer you right now. Many people were desperate. So here we are wanting to jaw drop off your resume in real life. And the blurb reads as employers grumble that AI recruitment tools send them crummy candidates and job seekers say applying for roles online feels fruitless. More people are going old school in their approach to hiring and getting hired. According to The Wall Street Journal frustrated business owners have resorted to putting help wanted signs in their windows. And they really do hope applicants will walk in don't see a sign knock on that door. Anyway. I would be more than happy to talk with anyone coming in off the street and Atlanta recruiter with 120 Open Positions says in quote. Lordy, yeah, I'm in a time loop. Right. Okay. I feel like that that scene. When Bruce Banner is talking to Tony Stark, Tony is wanting to create vision. And he's already created old Tron and Bruce is like, I'm coming to Thailand. Isn't this where it all went wrong the last time? Oh, boy. Now I'm yet again gonna put on my Michael Corleone hat here from the Godfather Part Two. I don't know who the recruiter or recruiters are, that were interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. Okay, let's think about Marone when Connie goes dragging him up there to beg for money and talk about how they're gonna go get married and whatever. And Michael is like, I don't know, this mural. I don't know where he lives on. Same thing here. I don't I don't know these people. I don't know what they live on. It's not my place to offer any comment on that. I'm just thinking out loud. I'm just opining here it's Imagine me talking to the wall just thinking out loud to no one other than myself. Who has 120 Open legitimate unfilled positions right now. What kinds of positions are they? Are they general laborer? Are they like janitorial? are? Are they anybody that can come into the shop and push a broom today is higher? Is it work today get paid today day laborer? I mean, what is it? Is it you're finding workers for fast food for retail? I mean, what were almost can't even talk like who what? What positions are these? I feel like there needs to be some qualifications put on that. Because staffing agencies that do work today get paid today or gin labor, if you can come in and push a broom you're hired for the day? Yes, of course, they probably would have a plethora of open positions, and they probably would be delighted to have randos walking in off the street. I'm just thinking that if we're talking about white collar knowledge work, Who Who are these people? What are these positions, this is something else to me, that just doesn't quite add up. I personally speaking only for myself. And that's all I can do. In my opinion. I can't quite make sense of this. Something about that just isn't passing my personal sniff test. I don't get it. I have heard from more than a few individuals who talked about walking into places whether it was restaurants, retail stores, whatever, that had help wanted signs posted in the window. And then nothing ever came of it. Remember earlier this year, there was a store cashier who told me this place one by default because they were the only place that called me back. I applied all over town. And this store was the only one that called me back. Well, that lady story is not isolated. And that is something that I am hearing from people all over the country. There are certain things about all these help wanted signs and 11 million open jobs wink wink that is just not passing the sniff test for me. So wow, what a strange and interesting time that we live in. In the meantime, stay safe, stay sane, and I will see you in the next episode.