Saturday Broadcast 35

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Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host Sara Causey. Hello. Hello, and thanks for tuning in today it is Saturday, February the fourth starting this broadcast earlier than usual because well, there's plenty to talk about the major news of today on CNBC as well as any other news outlet you choose. US military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon. In the key points on CNBC, we find the US military on Saturday shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon. According to NBC News. The FAA issued a ground stop in parts of North Carolina and South Carolina on Saturday afternoon to support the Department of Defense and a national security effort. The high altitude balloon was initially spotted over Billings Montana on Wednesday. China's foreign ministry said Friday that the balloon was a civilian weather airship intended for scientific research that was blown off course. This claim was summarily dismissed by US officials and quote hmm, I can't imagine why. Over on Daily Mail, we can read more about what happened in Billings, the headline is explosion in the sky above Billings, Montana where Chinese spy balloon was spotted infiltrating us airspace. As a residence report seeing jet zoom by after officials came under fire for refusing to shoot it down. And their little TLDR key points we find. Resident witnesses in Billings, Montana saw an explosion in the sky after US officials warned of a Chinese spy balloon flying over the region. Video of the aftermath reveals a trail of smoke in the sky where the balloon was US officials called the balloon a clear violation of sovereignty while warning that it wouldn't be shut down because it was hovering over sensitive sites and quote, so that also sounds scary. So what do we make of this? I don't know. I don't know. On Fox News, the major headline that's just on and on and on this afternoon has been Chinese spy balloon shot down live on Fox and it's like, Well, why would that be happening on live TV? I mean, was this coordinated? I mean, is this legitimate? Is this the kickoff to some terrible battle that's about to happen? I hope not. I pray not. Is it a distraction, so that we're all focused on this spy balloon and we're all getting riled up? Is this the opening volley? We're let's all get mad at China now. Because how dare they put this spy balloon over us airspace? I don't know. I truly don't I sit here and opine for your entertainment only. And all I can say is I hope and pray that it's not the kickoff of warfare. I really do. In the last Saturday broadcast I came on early at that point to to talk about the general that was warning about war with China. I don't find it coincidental that that story broke last Saturday. And then here we are one week later. Seeing the story about a spy balloon getting shot down. What are the odds that that's just complete and utter coincidence. If you pray, this would be a good time to approach the throne boldly and pray for peace. If not meditate on peace, do whatever it is that you feel is within your power to just send out the vibes of peace into the universe or to ask God for peace. And be prepared in case that is not the direction that this goes in. I told you before, in my opinion, if the war hawks decide we need to go to war, if that's what's going to happen. Are you prepared in the event that the engines of war fire up? Are you prepared? Do you have some extra food and water? Do you know how you would handle it? That we could be in for some scary times? Again? I hope not. I pray not. But that's a real possibility. And there certainly seems to be some kind of escalation here. And if it's not escalation of some kind and I'm totally off base, then maybe it's distraction from something else that's more important that we're not supposed to be paying attention to looking over here at this weather balloon turned spy balloon. I don't know I don't pretend to have the answer on that. But I think it's something that you need to pay attention to. Also, something else that came across my radar screen On January 18, there was an article on risk dotnet titled, cost of bank bail in rules lower than expected EBA M r e l pricing manageable for most banks, though troubled firms may struggle to meet targets. Let's get into this. I know that's a lot of jargon. But let's get into this EBA meaning European banking authority. The European banking authority believes banks will be able to meet their minimum requirements for debt that can be bailed in during a resolution known as eligible liabilities or M r e l without significant increases in overall funding costs. The rise in inflation and interest rates in 2022 has not significantly driven up the cost of complying with the M r e l rules. According to an EBA report published on January 16. Though the regulator acknowledged that some troubled banks may have to pay in quote. So, m r e l again I know this is jargon heavy M R E L stands for minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities. There are whispers on the wind, shall we say about European banks looking at bail ins I hope that's not true I that's another thing let's all pray to God that that's not the case. If you're wondering what is a bail in and I've heard of bail out so I remember in oh eight no nine when Wall Street showed up with their hat in their hand, wanting to be bailed out too big to fail and all that what the hell's a bail in. So we'll pivot over to investopedia.com Why bank bail ins will be the new bail outs I'll read. The world experienced a major upheaval during the 2007 2008 financial crisis, the problems didn't happen overnight. In fact, they were years in the making. Rock bottom interest rates lead to an increase in borrowing which was a boon to existing and prospective homeowners. But it would prove to become a bubble destined to burst, one that would greatly impact not only consumers but also some of the world's major banks. The great recession that followed ushered in the term too big to fail. regulators and politicians used it to describe the rationale for rescuing some of the country's largest financial institutions with taxpayer funded bailouts. heeding the public's displeasure over the use of their tax dollars in such a way. Congress passed the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Act in January 2010, which eliminated the option of bank bailouts but opened the door for bank bail ins. And they'll in their TLDR key takeaways we read. Big banks were deemed too big to fail following the financial crisis of Oh 708, resulting in government bailouts at the expense of taxpayers. financial reforms ushered in with the Dodd Frank Act eliminated bailouts and opened the door for bail ins. Bail ins allow banks to convert debt into equity to increase their capital requirements. They shift the risk to unsecured creditors, including depositors whose account balances exceed the FDIC limit of $250,000. You can avoid bail ins by spreading your assets across different banks and by monitoring changes in financial regulations. I want you to really hear this. They shift the risk to unsecured creditors, including depositors, whose account balances exceed the FDIC limit of 250k, including depositors. You know who that is you Wakey wakey bank bail ins versus bank bailout. Bail ins and bailouts both serve the same purpose. They are designed to prevent the complete collapse of a failing bank. But the difference between the two lies primarily in who bears the financial burden of rescuing the bank. With bailouts, the government inject capital into the banks, enabling them to continue their operations. During the financial crisis, the government bailed out major banks by injecting $700 billion into names like Bank of America, Citigroup, and American International Group better known as AIG. Since the government doesn't have its own money and must use taxpayer funds, bail ins work a little differently, providing immediate relief, banks use money from their unsecured creditors, including depositors and bondholders to restructure their capital to stay afloat. Put simply, they can convert their debt into equity to increase their capital requirements. Although depositors run the risk of losing some of their deposits, banks can only use deposits in excess of the $250,000 protected by the FDIC. Yeah, getting all spooky out there. Getting a little spooky out there. I hope that the whispers on the wind are incorrect about what's going on with the European Central Banks. I don't know if I can independently confirm something, then I just tell you, it's a whisper on the wind. Although if you go back and you look at the track record of the whispers on the wind that I've told you about in these broadcasts, they've been pretty freakin accurate. It's scary anywhere, it doesn't matter if we're talking about Europe, we're talking about the US wherever it is scary to think about the possibility of bail ins. I am not going to tell you what to do, I don't ever tell you what to do. This Investopedia article spells out pretty clearly that in their advice, you can avoid bail ins by spreading your assets across different banks. And by monitoring changes in financial regulations. You better keep your head on a freakin swivel these days. If somebody in your life is still playing games, they're more worried about Harry and Megan and Kim and Kanye. Because here's the deal. I mean, let's just let's just be candid about this. If we're talking about people who have more than the FDIC limit of 250k in a single bank, I'm gonna assume they're probably fairly financially savvy, they probably have a wealth manager, they probably have a financier, they probably have somebody on their side looking out for them. That's keeping apprised of all this information. The average working class person doesn't have you know, some kind of major domo of their finances looking out for them. The onus is on you to do exactly what this article is talking about to monitor those changes. In financial regulations. It's up to you, if you want to spread your assets across different banks. You know, the preppers like to say if you don't hold it, you don't own it. And you know, I'm surely not going to stick a bunch of money under my mattress and hope for the best. We have to be able to have money to pay the bills in a bank somewhere. We just don't live in an era where you can walk into an office by and large and pay somebody in cash. A lot of the offices where your payments go to are not even local to you. It's not even a possibility anymore. The times are changing and things are getting scary. Again, I hope that all of this information turns out to be one big nothing burger. We just have to be prepared in case Baylands start to happen in case the engines of war fire up because it's such a powder keg right now. The least little bit of a spark could set off something terrible. I mean, at least it feels that way to me. Also, before I leave you let's go over to LinkedIn because we get even more layoffs. So new ones that don't think I've reported on yet Salesforce, the biggest employer in San Francisco has begun to move forward with a workforce reduction that was announced in January 10% of employees at the Seattle startup high spot have reportedly lost their jobs. layoffs are afflicting the crypto industry with cutbacks at protocol labs Bitrex Chang chainalysis Prime trust and coin tracker get around a peer to peer car sharing company has let go of 10% of its staff. Autodesk has laid off approximately 250 employees. games publisher tilting point is reducing its global headcount by 10%. cutbacks at mine strong affected 127 employees along with the mental health startups CEO Boston Area Health tech firm Athenahealth laid off 178 people. The agency a Bravo famous real estate brokerage has reportedly laid off 4% of its staff. LinkedIn members are getting our posting about layoffs at the software firm Genesis, urban data firm replica gifting platforms and Dosso elearning developer articulate digital ad platform media math and communications provider dial Pat Austin telehealth company wheel is parting ways with 28% of its workforce. And the DC based cybersecurity firm siren has reduced IT staff by 121 employees and quote but hey, her I don't know why I thought of Scooby Doo. That's so random but like, I guess because like the Scooby Snacks, you know, like, Hey, you're getting all of this bad news. All of these layoffs are bringing it out but hey 3.4% unemployment. That's the best it's been in 50 some odd years. Tons of open jobs, red hot labor market. I can't make sense of it. Today it is Sunday February 5. I wanted to hop on and just sort of issue a PSA or a word of warning. You know I've been reading Glenn Greenwald's book no place to hide. I will be talking about that on my blog. I'll also be talking about it on Thursday's episode of this podcast, this idea of yeah, there's no place to hide. But does anyone care anymore? Haven't we just sort of accepted mass surveillance? Well, there are articles coming out on BBC and on fortune about workplace surveillance. And even if you work from home, the statistic they give is supposedly eight out of 10 private employers admit to surveilling employees who work from home. I personally, in my opinion, would assume it's 10 out of 10. I think it may be naive to assume those other two out of 10 aren't doing it because they may just not be confessing that they did it. I cannot tell you what to do. I don't ever give advice on this podcast. I opine for your entertainment only I do not tell you what to do or what not to do. For me personally, I assume that a piece of employer technology in my home is 100% being used to surveil me, whether it's a tablet, a cell phone, a laptop, or even just a thumb drive, I would assume that it has the capability to watch and log, every single thing that I do when I'm in the room with that technology. Like I would never undress. were changed clothes in front of an employer provided laptop, for example. Yet you would be surprised the number of people who do exactly that. To me, that's crazy. Or they would sit there and talk on their cell phone with a friend about how much they hate their boss. And it's like, don't you kind of assume that your boss is listening? Don't you assume that they're going to find out that you call them a shithead? On the phone with your best friend like Don't? Don't you think that's probably going to be revealed at some point? I myself would not assume for 10 seconds, that I was part of that two out of 10 that weren't being surveilled. If it were me, I would assume that any piece of employer technology I had in my house was 100% being used to surveil me, sort of like your Miranda rights, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. Well, same thing in corporate America assume that it's surveilling you and that if you say or do anything that doesn't toe the line, it could be used against you. And it could be used as a reason to terminate you with cause. That's just my opinion. And I could be wrong. But that's my rule of thumb. Now, in terms of the other part of this PSA, you know, I have always said that for me, as a freelancer, I just don't accept employer or client, in my case, client technology into my home, I don't want the liability of it. I don't want the if you break it, you buy it. Oh, it got lost in transit. And it's your fault. I don't want to deal with any of that headache. I think it's an unnecessary liability. Everything now is cloud based. Okay, I would be careful about anybody who tells you otherwise, oh, you need our technology because blah, blah, blah, they can come up with 100,000 reasons about why they want your their tech in your house. Everything now is cloud based. Let's be realistic. So I don't want the liability of it. I don't want it in my house. I don't want somebody surveilling me. Point blank. Maybe I'm old school and I'm just a holdout on all of this. But I it's just not something that I feel comfortable with. I can do everything that I need to do remotely and in the cloud. And I feel like if someone doesn't trust me enough to have a deliverable that looks good. And that makes sense for what they've asked me to do, then they shouldn't hire me anyway. I have enough experience enough of the pedigree that comes behind me that there's just no reason to wonder about what do you do? And what do you do? And out there when we want to know every keystroke we want to log everything? No, you don't need to do that. That's absurd. That is the way that I approach it. Again, I can't tell you what to do. But I feel like I sleep better at night knowing that I don't have that crap in my house. Another thing that I want to tell you is in light of this, sometimes clients can get sneaky. I'm going to have to be necessarily vague, and I'm going to have to be very careful in the way that I tell you this information. The main thing I will tell you is it's not anecdotal. It's not like oh, somebody somewhere told me this story. And it might be true, it might not. I will tell you that I have direct first hand experience Direct first hand knowledge with what I'm about to warn you of. That's really all I can say. Sometimes, clients will try to persuade freelancers that they need to remote in on your computer even though it's a your computer or your device you bought and paid for it. And you may be working on projects for other clients that are confidential things that they don't need to see or ever know about. They can try to come up with reasons that their IT department needs to remote in to your computer. They need to download something they need to install something they need. To check your specifications on your laptop, again, I cannot tell you what to do. All I know is that for me, that is a resounding hell no, you're not going to remote in to do jack squat. I'm not going to say that I am the tech savviest person on the planet. I'm not. There are people half my age that probably know a bazillion things more about technology and programming than I'll ever learn. But I am tech savvy enough to know that that's a bad freaking idea. I also have, you know, that old thing called common sense. And if something doesn't pass my sniff test, I'm not going to agree to it. Stay Woke, stay aware. Just know that there are people out there that want access to your data, and they want access to your keystrokes. They want that freaking control. They want that surveillance so bad that they will try to twist logic into a complete pretzel and use any justification. And I'm using justification and air quotes here. Because in my opinion, it's completely bogus. They'll try to use any justification they can come up with to say, All right, well, if you don't want our technology, that's fine. Let us remote in and we need to make sure you have this program. And we need to look at your laptop laptop spec, so we can make sure that you can handle what we need you to do. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's just me. That's my approach. I know that sometimes, especially in a recession and a downturn, when you're hurting for money, you may have to do what the crisis demands. So I'm not telling you what to do. I'm really just warning you that there are people out there pulling this bullcrap in the market right now. Keep your head on a swivel. And if you agree to do that, I just think you have to know what you're getting yourself into, or what you are potentially getting yourself into. It's your judgment call. It's your decision how you want to handle it, just know that these things are going on in the market. Today, it is Monday, February the sixth another weird, strange, conflicting, mixed bag of tricks that we find ourselves in. I'm sticking by my assessment that I think that's just going to be the theme for 2023 A weird, strange, conflicting mixed bag of tricks. I don't know if this will be the year that you're finally allowed to know that we are in a recession or if we're just going to keep the narrative going that we're not who knows anymore. Now I will be talking on the blog as well as on my podcast on Thursday's episode, I will be talking more specifically about Glenn Greenwald's book no place to hide. I will also be blogging about the news that's broken about how the NSA started recruiting people from big tech, knowing that layoffs were coming. I think that's very interesting. So be sure to check that out. After I publish it, I will drop a link in the write up for this particular episode so that you can find it quickly. Over on fortune.com. Let's just go ahead and rub our temples and get this tension headache out of the way. Over on fortune.com. We find big loud and proud the main headline is the treasury secretary says the red hot labor market means the US can avoid a recession. You don't have a recession when you have 500,000 jobs and the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years. The byline reads the country has been through a lot. But really we have a strong and resilient economy. Yellen told ABC and inflation is coming down. Do you believe any of that? I mean, are you seeing it where you live what you're experiencing in the US if you're here. Do do you see any of that? You can't have a recession if you've got half a million jobs and the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years. Yeah, I mean you can if the numbers are funny math. If you're doing voodoo economics You sure can. We also learned today Dell job cuts 6650 staff acts as PC demand plunges. Trump's ex economy boss says a recession is off the table for the first half of 2023 and people going back to the office is a big reason why. So we get a twofer in that article. Okay, we still get the in my opinion, hot air and hopium that a recession is off the table. And as a bonus we get our to fluff. The reason why we're going to avoid it is because you are going to get your behind back in the cube farm Do you have to laugh? You know, it's sort of like when Russell Brand is on his channel, talking about dystopian terrible sci fi villain type plots and he's laughing and making jokes you have to do that. You're gonna lose your sanity the times that we're living in if you can't figure out some way to cope with all of this. On the side panel for LinkedIn, we find Dell latest to plan job cuts, latest layoffs, companies making cuts, dollar stores, NAB food shoppers, will Yeah, because that's all that we can afford right now. Deadly earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria. When we click on Dell latest to plan job cuts, we find Dell Technologies plans to cut around 6650 jobs or 5% of its global workforce reports Bloomberg citing an internal memo, like many of its peers, Dell experienced a pandemic boom as demand exploded for PCs from stay at home consumers. Dell, which makes 55% of its revenue from PCs faced a 37% drop in personal computer shipments in the fourth quarter of 2022. Compared with the same period the year before. The tech sector has been battered by layoffs cutting around 97,171 jobs in 2022. Up 649% from the previous year, said Bloomberg citing data from consulting firm challenger gray and Christmas and quote, but hey, no recession look at how robust and resilient this economy is now I'm sure all of those people from Dell that get laid off from their tech jobs I'm sure they can go get a job in healthcare or fast food leisure and hospitality maybe they can all go work for the NSA and everything will be peaches and cream. All right. So when our little running tally here of latest layoffs, companies making cuts here we go layoffs for the past week Dell Technologies, which we just talked about layoffs making headlines in February. Let's see what we've updated here. getter, one of several rapid delivery startups struggling to gain US market share, reportedly laid off 100 corporate employees and quote, does this feel robust and resilient to you? At this point, even people who have no expertise in the job market whatsoever are looking around saying none of this makes sense. It feels like this is a manufactured situation. It feels like a recession is being placed upon us on purpose. It feels like this job market is bullshit. And it's being hyped up to sound like it's not bullshit. It gives me some hope that some people are waking up. Some people are realizing that the emperor is naked and doesn't have any clothes on. I certainly hope if you're listening today, you've already come to that conclusion on your own. I don't tell you what to do. I don't tell you what to think. Just from a personal perspective. I hope you get it. Today it is Tuesday, February 7, of course people are waiting with bated breath to hear what Jerome Powell is going to say about the red hot jobs report. Prediction alert. I'm pretty sure he's going to say that since the labor market is supposedly still so robust. They can continue with their rate hikes and it will be okay. It's all right. Even in the face of mass layoffs. It's totally going to be okay. If they foment more mass layoffs. Don't believe me? Just watch. On that note. On e financial careers. This was actually the only place that I was able to find this information. The headline is Credit Suisse is announcing bonuses tomorrow cutting jobs today. In this we read tomorrow is Credit Suisse bonus day. Today the Swiss bank is making one more round of job cuts before awarding its greatly diminished payouts for 2022. The cuts are expected to hit the remains of Credit Suisse's securitized Products Group or SPG. Key Credit Suisse people including Jay Kim, the former head of Credit Suisse's fixed income, credit products business are moving across to the new securitization business being formed by Apollo, which purchased elements of the SPG another 20 Credit Suisse securitized product traders are moving to Mizzou Mizzou on generous bonuses. Many of the remainder are being cut today. While a romp will seemingly remain to run the business down Credit Suisse declined to comment on the cuts and quote, can't imagine why. Over on Yahoo Finance we find why recent layoff announcements signal the end of corporate stimulus. The byline reads corporate America can't seem to be laying off workers fast enough yet job growth is still robust across the US economy. Yeah, So when we click on that we find us employers have already asked north of 100,000 jobs this week. According to the latest figures from data firm challenger gray and Christmas out last week, yet the Labor Department's monthly jobs report Friday indicated hiring remains robust with payrolls rising by more than half a million in January, leaving investors wondering what the real signal is. And quote. Yeah, yeah, so all of this conflicting data, as I've said before, becomes much less difficult to understand if you assume that someone is lying. If you assume that some of these figures are complete and total bullshit, and that they are, in my opinion, manipulated to support whatever neocon or Neo lib is in office at the time, as well as to make sure that you think the Fed is on your side and that they're going to do what's best for the little guy. Sure. Now, we also find why so many jobs are going unfilled. Do tell so when we click on that we find despite all the recent headlines about layoffs and strong jobs, growth, a really large number of jobs in the United States are still waiting to be filled, said Nick Eber, stat economist and demographer at the American Enterprise Institute. It's really unfamiliar what's happening now. Eber stat told Yahoo Finance, we've got men and women who are sitting on the sidelines of the economy and not applying to these jobs. The problem according to either stat, the prime age male component of the labor market, or men who have left the labor force and are not looking for work, the trend which he describes in his recently updated book, men without work has been underway for two generations. Now. We have this remarkable paradox, where we have very high numbers of prime age men who are neither working or looking for work at the same time that we've got an unprecedented peacetime labor shortage, where we have over 10 million unfilled open positions in the economy set Eberstadt, The Economist estimates roughly 7 million men between the ages of 25 and 54, are believed to be sitting on the sidelines, not looking for work. Those people are not accounted for in the unemployment rate. You don't sorry, which ticked down to 3.4% last month. Now, we're also told in this article about excess retirements, immigration has to play a role because you know, we need to be able to import people that we can exploit. Oops, did I say that out loud? Oh, oh, shouldn't say that. In crony capitalist America. He's beneath the browser told a little too much truth there. will lay offs solve the problem. How does that even make any sense? If your thesis is that they're supposedly all of these prime aged men that are not participating in the workforce. And by the way, I debunked this idea in a previous episode, when you have people trotting out old stories and old statistics, pretending that they're brand new, and that these supposedly lazy ass men not working, living in grandma's basement or hanging out on their girlfriend's couch not doing much of anything besides smoking dope, and playing video games. If we make this up and we demonize these people, well, then we can say they caused the labor shortage, which in turn caused the Fed to crash the job market because see, it's got to be somebody's fault. And it's going to be the fault of some peons somewhere. It's not going to be the fault of the feudal lords. Oh, no, goodness gracious. No, no, it's going to be the fault of working class average people. It was ever thus. Also on Yahoo Finance, we find Bed Bath and Beyond stock sinks 45% on plans to raise $1 billion. The stock market Hype Machine has come for AI. All right. Americans expected to wager $16 billion on the Super Bowl. Well, if that's true, if that be the case, it's probably because people are trying to scare up a quick buck any way that they can. Over on fortune.com we find bosses think they're winning the return to office until employees blindside them by quiet quitting. Bah bah bah bah. In the byline we read to boost engagement making employees feel like their opinions are heard is almost as important as letting them work from home. Is it? Look at the verbiage they're making employees feel like so it's not necessarily that their opinions are heard or that their opinions and their feedback carry any validity to the company. It's just you make them feel as if their opinions are heard, and that's almost as important as letting them work from home. Because sure, I want to be like synchronicity to pack like lemmings into shiny metal boxes can contestants in a suicidal race. I want to be living in my shiny metal box fighting rush hour traffic to get to work. As long as I feel like my opinions are heard. What nonsense. And it's something that might actually be, you know, a breath of reality. Hope is not a strategy. Bank of America CEO warns corporate America must prepare for the worst around debt ceiling. Yeah, because here's the deal. As I've said many times, these Politico's these fat cats, the power brokers, the CEOs of ginormous global companies, they know what's coming and they know what time it is. The unwashed masses are the ones that are not supposed to know what's coming. They're not supposed to know what time it is. With this statement. I agree. 100% hope is not a strategy. I can't tell you what to do. I sit here and I opine for your entertainment only. I hope, you know for your entertainment only that you're sufficiently prepped up. I hope you have a little bit of extra food and water in the house. Hope you have a job last survival plan. If you freelance I hope that you've come up with some alternate ways of making money. So if the primary way that you've been making money dries up, maybe not for forever, but for a little while. There's something else that you can fall back on. Do you have a plan B or C or D? Do you have an RTO survival plan? If you bought a house that's two or three hours away from the home office, and all of a sudden you get the come on back? Come on in here. It's your job pal. Are you prepared for that? Over on LinkedIn, they are finally talking about this idea that working parents are facing a childcare crisis? Yeah. I've been warning you about that to some places that had sufficient eldercare and childcare and pet care for that matter back in 2019. Some of those businesses are long gone. Are you have you thought it out? Are you prepared to handle that? Also unfortunate.com We read reason T ism is the latest trend plaguing workers. And it's even more dangerous than quiet quitting. So I suppose if you're resentful, you're going to get purged as a dissident anyway, if you don't go along to get along, you don't put on a happy face and go along with the pageantry and the pantomime of corporate America, you're going to get shoved out as a dissident anyway. The first opportunity they get to hand you a pink slip or to try to fire you with cause they're going to do it anyway. This is also not anything new. I think any introvert who's been in a highly extroverted business culture can tell you that I think people who are just burned out on the BS can tell you that. I read an article the other day on medium. And the author said something about I don't ever want to go back to corporate America because I can't ignore a skunk in the Punchbowl. If I see a skunk in the Punchbowl, I want to be the person to say it. But it seems like corporate America doesn't want you to point out the skunk in the Punchbowl. It's like Oh, yeah. Exactly that you get to be the fall guy or the fall gal if you point out that there's a skunk in the Punchbowl. So the idea of reason tea ism, it's not a it's not a new trend. It's not. There just has to be a kitschy name for everything. Oh, and on that note, hush trips are the next big trend your worker won't tell you about. But that doesn't mean bosses should crack down. And they show a picture of a lady at the beach in front of the ocean with like what looks to be a daiquiri or some kind of tropical drink playing on her laptop. Hush trips. Well, I mean, anything is better in my opinion than going on social media and broadcasting your business in front of God and everybody. If you are on a hush trip, but you still are intending to work, you better keep that frickin stuff quiet. No wonder people have resorted to that. Again, I don't give you advice. I don't tell you what to do or what not to do. You have to make those decisions for yourself. But if it were me if I were going to be traveling somewhere for whatever reason, and I needed to continue working that day, I wouldn't broadcast it on social media. I'd be like a ninja other than the NSA and whoever is assigned to listen to me i nobody gonna know I went hush trips. I'm just gonna sit here and rub my third eye for a while and try to digest all of this. So it's still Tuesday, and I'm hopping back on to confirm that my prediction alert was correct. Over on CNBC, we find Fed Chair Powell says inflation is starting to ease but interest rates still likely to rise. In the TLDR key points we find. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday that disinflation has begun, but it's going to take time, markets latched on Want to passwords and briefly turned positive before flipping back to negative after he cautioned about stronger than expected economic data. If we continue to get, for example, strong labor market reports or higher inflation reports, it may well be the case that we have to do more and raise rates more than is priced in he said and, quote, told you, we also learned this afternoon, zoom to lay off 1300 employees or about 15% of its workforce. Lots and lots of good news out there, folks. Keep your head on a swivel. Are you looking for more? Don't forget you can find Sara on her blogs at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And at SaraCausey.com. You can also read her content on Medium, and Substack. On with the show. Today, it is Wednesday, February 8. Before I get into today's headlines, there are a few things that have popped up here and there on the news app on my phone, and I've been meaning to read them. So I'm going to do that now. From the Guardian, we find want to truly have empathy for animals stop owning pets. You vote on nursing and you have to be happy. So apparently that includes pets. And Jared a Brock wrote a great article this morning on medium about how it also includes books now. And I know some wise and Heimer will pop up and say Well, isn't that the point of a public library that you could check out a book if you didn't have the funds to buy it? Yes, that's true. The notion is not that renting a book temporarily is a new concept. It's really when you put it into the context of everything else. You're not going to own anything. You haven't figured that out by now. I'm really not sure what to tell you. I'll get into that a little further in an upcoming episode. From American military news, we find video people are swiping their poems to pay for groceries. From study finds food swamps, may be sending older adults to an early grave. People are calling for adult only suburbs for people who are evil from Unilad let me tell you something, you know, just just my opinion, and I could be wrong. I'm sitting here making some editorial comments for your entertainment only. Kids nowadays are trip man. You know, I talked on a broadcast about that kid Toby. And the mom was like now Toby, we don't do that. Meanwhile, Toby was going through and smashing everything onto the ground. It was crazy. I don't think that you're evil, or soulless or heartless if you want to patronize adult only establishments. I'm sorry, I don't go into a place and hearing some kid caterwauling in ear piercing scream and the adults just seem to tune it out. Or they just hand the kid a device of some kind and hope that that's going to quell the temper tantrum. Like I get it. And I've talked before about suburban sprawl and how the burbs just seem to be increasing and increasing and increasing now. In light of UVA, nothing. Will that change? Will everybody be crammed into a 300 square foot unit or an efficiency apartment somewhere in a big city? And that's going to be the end of the burbs? I don't know, because you can bet that the hyper elites and the fat cats and the power brokers they're going to own whatever the hell they want. This is for the unwashed masses and those of us who are mere peons and plebs. But in the meantime, suburban sprawl is just so ubiquitous, and then you have people's kids and grandkids that have never been raised with any discipline. Nobody has ever taught them how to mind manners, or, I don't know, be decent humans. So look, I don't buy into the idea that if you just want to be around adults only and you don't want to be around screaming kids with no manners that makes you a bad person. I don't think so. Maybe that offends some of you. I don't care. I'm just telling you what I think. Okay, so over on CNBC, we find fed Governor Christopher Waller warns that interest rates could go higher than expectations. Well, no, duh. Alphabet shares falls 7% following Google's AI event. Google shows off more of what its chat GPT competitor Bart can do. Lawyers and advisors and FTX bankruptcy have billed nearly$20 million for 51 days of work. Hmm. I wonder I wonder I wonder who's gonna wind up footing the bill for that, huh. Biden says the economy is doing better than last year. Not all Americans agree. Yeah, I'm going to go out on on a limb here and say that if you've been laid off your job hunting, you're not finding anything, or it's taking weeks or even months to get a nibble. You're probably going to disagree with that. And I've told you before, I have seen it firsthand in the freelance The market, people who want to pay pennies on the dollar, yes, I want an expert. This person needs to be at the top of their game. But I only want to pay for entry level wages. Give me an expert at an entry level pay. Okay, thanks. And that's like, Huh, no, that's not really how this works. But look, people are not naive. They know, they know that we're in a recession, they know that unemployment is going up. A lot of people don't really believe that it's any 3.4% and they want to try to take advantage of the unemployed. I wish I could get on here and tell you something different. Just telling you what I'm saying. We also find Credit Suisse warns that debt ceiling impasse will likely prove stressful for markets. Yeah. Sort of like, How could it not? That whole debt default mess is scary business indeed. And then when you start thinking about bailouts, and bail ins, and the average working class person being on the hook for all of this, it's maddening. Over on fortune.com, we find Americans are feeling the worst about their money since the great recession. That's also a no duh moment for me. How good do you feel right now, regardless of what's going on in the stock market, or what some talking head on mainstream media is telling you? How do you feel about it? What are your personal finances looking like when you go to the grocery store? Is it letting up? Are you feeling any pressure relief at all? Are you still feeling squeezed? I imagine that you probably still feel squeezed. I know we do. Also in Business Insider, we find a chief economist who called the 2008 housing bubble says how home prices will fall another 15% Over the next year, as they remain too disconnected from buyer incomes and the supply of homes on the market grows. Yeah, Scott Walters has recorded a very good video about people who have been the victims of big tech layoffs starting to get in trouble with their mortgages. This is reality. A lot of the mansplain errs, the bots, the trolls and the shills that were around last year, still trying to hype people up still trying to make play that we were in 2021. And the market is going to be hot forever, the prices are only going to go up you need to buy a house right now. A lot of those assholes, pardon my candor, I'm just being blunt here, a lot of those assholes are gone, you're just not seeing them anymore. Now, we still have a few people trying to convince us that we're not in a recession, and that you should buy the dip a lot of social media anymore. I mean, I have such mixed emotions about it. It's a necessary evil when you own a business, because in order to get eyes on your content, you got to publish it somewhere. Sort of like the Scripture about not hiding your light from the world. Like, at some point, you're gonna have to be seen by other human beings. If you want other human beings to read your content, you're gonna have to publish it somewhere. That's like whenever I go to put something on Twitter, which I didn't even want to use Twitter, like who even still has that? Isn't it a dead platform? I mean, yeah, it pretty much is. But so when I started using substack, they have linkups between Twitter, and they'll give you media assets that you can use, which are pretty cool. I have to say, I really liked the way that they're doing it on substack. But my God, like after I post, a tweet, which leads to my substack. And I just go back to the homepage. It is such as immunity. Tons of BS about the royal family, tons of pictures of Harry and Megan. And it did Madonna have plastic surgery, and somebody at the Grammys came out with devil horns. And isn't that terrible? Or isn't that great? I mean, just depending upon what kind of echo chamber you want. And I'm like, I don't care about any of this. Literally none of it. How could somebody sit and read that and look at that for hours at a time. It just all feels so artificial. To me. It feels manipulated, it feels constructed. It feels like somebody is orchestrating a narrative and they want you to go down a particular path. I'm thinking of like Hansel and Gretel and the breadcrumbs. Like we're just going to give you all of this meaningless bullshit, and entice you to try to stay here and read it. Whether it's look at Biden's State of the Union, and isn't he a liar? Or Isn't he great? Look at Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She had her rebuttal. Isn't she great? Or isn't she terrible? And I'm just like, none of this matters. No offense, no disrespect meant but none of this matters. You know I've said before that for me, in my opinion, the Neo cons and the Neo libs are all little piggies that feed off the same trough. So do I particularly care about who gives a rebuttal who gives the main speech and then who gives a rebuttal and what they're going to say no. No shit. No. To me it matters a lot more about what is the Fed doing? What are the power brokers saying you know, the people who like really for real real real control economy, which is not these politicians btw, okay, I'm a lot more interested in what they're doing and what they say is coming, because that will impact the job market, it will impact my ability to go out and earn a living and feed my family. It will impact the cost of goods and services. So what a cesspool. So many of these outlets have become it's, it's sad, but certainly not likely to change anytime soon. Today is Thursday, February 9, this morning, I published a podcast episode about Glenn Greenwald's book no place to hide. I know I've been talking about that a lot lately, but we shouldn't be talking about it. We should be talking about mass surveillance and what that looks like as we move forward. So we're like a decade out from the revelations at this point, and look at how accepting people are of being mass surveilled. Now at the web. They're talking about reading your brainwaves. It's getting spooky out there. Now here's a few layoff updates to highlight what a red hot blazing hot electric magnificent labor market we're still in supposedly, on LinkedIn, we find Disney to cut 7000 jobs amid reshuffle Disney's first earnings report since Bob Iger is returning to CEO came with two major bombshells, the company is splitting into three parts and it's cutting 7000 jobs around 3% of its workforce as it aims to reduce costs by roughly$5.5 billion. The reorganized company will consist of Disney entertainment, parks, experiences and products and ESPN. The shakeups came as Disney announced stronger than expected revenue and earnings including a 21% revenue bump and its theme park and product segment. As expected Disney plus lost subscribers after a December price increase, but fewer than analysts fear 2.4 million versus more than 3 million in quote. Okay, red hot job market. They've had a 21% revenue bump but apparently they still need to restructure and cut 7000 jobs. Over on our running tally of layoffs here let's shuffle over in this direction. Layoffs from the past week, Disney will eliminate 7000 positions. JP Morgan Chase has cut hundreds of employees from its ailing mortgage business Bloomberg reports but hey remember that supposedly the housing market is getting ready to come back. Marry the house but date the rate it's going to come on back y'all I'm sure it will. A bursting by now pay later bubble has claimed 19% of affirm employees. Pharmacy startup medley will close its stores and let go of its remaining team members by the end of the month. Gusto has let go of 126 people who comprise about 5% of the payroll provider staff, Vietnamese Evie maker vinfast is cutting about 80 jobs in North America following a restructuring. Despite securing 105 million in new financing in June Nomad health is laying off workers according to member posts on LinkedIn. About 80 people have lost their jobs at Gong a unicorn status analytics company. eBay says it will let go of 500 employees a move that will shrink its workforce by 4%. Zoom is laying off about 1300 people as part of a 15% workforce reduction. Secure works which is majority owned by Dell has reduced its headcount by 9%. The layoffs are believed to affect more than 200 employees. truest financial, which announced layoff plans in January has reportedly let go of dozens of investment bankers. And Boeing said it expects to cut about 2000 corporate jobs. Yeah, that definitely definitely sounds like a red hot, super tight, blazing job market to me littering your LinkedIn feed every day layoff announcements, but hey, God, so many open jobs now their service sector jobs. Apparently, if you get laid off from 150k tech job, or some high level position at Boeing or at Disney, well, you should just be able to go get a $15 an hour job and fast food or retail. And you'll be all right through this economic downturn. I'm sure yeah, of course that makes complete sense. When we click on Zoom lays off 1300 We find Zoom is laying off about 1300 people as part of a 50 80% workforce reduction CEO Eric Yuan announced Tuesday in a message to employees you want laid out a narrative that's become familiar in the tech world. The company over hired during the pandemic to meet surging demand for its video conferencing services. But the uncertainty of the global economy now compels it to cut jobs. The power of Christ compels me. Sorry. It was right there had to go for it. laid off employees will receive 16 weeks of salary health care coverage and their annual bonus they see oh said you on will reduce his own salary by 98% for the fiscal year and forego his 2023 Bonus he said, Okay, so even though I abhor video conferencing platforms, I'm so tired of these damn video meetings that could have either been a simple telephone call or an email. Even better yet. I feel sorry, obviously, for people that are getting laid off. And I think in the case of zoom, you could make the argument that undoubtedly they beefed up staff because of the Zoom Room. Any of these video conferencing platforms, I'm sure that when more and more people were working from home full time, it made sense to have as much of the staff as you could to help deal with it. Another thing this tells me is that you're going back to the cube. They're not anticipating as much need for these video conferencing platforms because you ain't gonna be at home. Connect the dots. Over on CNBC, we have headlines such as Disney CEO Bob Iger says he prefers to stay only two years called streaming the future. Everything is on the table now with Hulu Disney CEO says Biden's billionaire tax is dead on arrival in Congress top Wall Street backers and strategist say well, I mean, it's no surprise. Like I've said before they know where the loopholes and the laxity is are they know how to game the system because they are the system, these fat cats and billionaires and power brokers. It doesn't matter if you impose some kind of tax on them. Not really because they're going to figure out a way to get out of it. Hello, hi. How are you? Wake up. Chick fil A will test a cauliflower sandwich in its first plant based pilot. I mean, maybe if that's deep fried to all hell, it'll taste okay, but I'm just thinking about some of the other meat substitute companies that are not doing so well right now. And I'm like a cauliflower sandwich. Maybe that I mean, I don't personally know any vegans like people that are for real into the vegetarian and vegan lifestyle. That would go to Chick fil A and eat a cauliflower sandwich. Maybe if they were on the road. And that was the only option but some of those people are like very diehard about lifestyle and they just pack their own stuff. Even if they're on a road trip. They're not going to go to a fast food joint. That's just it's it's not in the cards for them. General Motors signs deal with Global Foundries for exclusive us semiconductor production. Fast food reigned supreme as inflation weighs on pricier restaurants. Well, yeah. People are having to go eat off the value menu even though the value menu isn't as cheap as it used to be because that's the option over on Yahoo Finance by way of fortune. There's a surprising culprit behind mass layoffs, says a prominent management professor at Wharton. Huh Do tell. Most bosses blame layoffs on economic downturns, a decline in demand for services or even over hiring. But one Wharton professor has a different view. It's how US accounting rules force companies to classify human capital that makes them seem like an expense to be cut rather than an asset to be protected. Peter capelli the George W. Taylor, Professor of Management at the Wharton School is the author of the new piece, how financial accounting screws up HR, published in Harvard Business Review. capelli argues that employers have gotten have gotten bad at managing employees and US financial reporting standards are in part to blame. If employees had asset value, one would think twice about just cutting them says capelli. Also the director of Wharton Center for Human Resources and quote, doesn't all have that feel just a little bit dystopian. If they had asset value, if you could make the shareholders and the Board of Directors see them as a financial asset rather than a worthless, disposable dispensable human, then maybe they think twice before just cutting them. Another thing is, as a business owner, myself, someone who does freelance and consulting work, nothing can screw up a situation faster than some bean counter that's coming in going well, I don't understand what this person is doing. Why can't we just hire somebody and put them on payroll and give them benefits? Why is it cheaper to do a consultant I don't really understand. And then you have to go and be part of some discussion with some Any who just doesn't even get it. They're not even involved in HR staffing and recruiting decisions. They don't even know what they're talking about. They just want to get to the bottom line. Even if you've helped the company tremendously, that doesn't matter to them. They're just looking at the numbers and trying to think about how can we exploit somebody? Oops, oh, I mean, put somebody in here and then bossing them around. Oops, I mean, hire somebody full time. Yeah. So if we go back to LinkedIn, we will find even more layoff announcements than what we saw just this morning. So let's see who's been added. GitHub has announced cutbacks that will continue through the end of the fiscal year and effect 10% of its staff. Fortune reports. like LinkedIn, GitHub is owned by Microsoft. Git lab will say goodbye to 7% of its employees, its CEO wrote in a blog post, based on the latest available public data Tech Crunch estimates that 114 People could be affected amid a slowdown in client spending and efforts to more deeply integrate its multiple brands. GoDaddy is laying off 530 employees who represent 8% of the company's workforce. But hey, supposedly, it is still a red hot labor market to open jobs for every one unemployed person. 3.4% unemployment rate. lowest it's been in over 50 years. Shouldn't you be feeling good? Shouldn't you be feeling a warm, tingly, loving sensation right there in the cockles of your heart? Today, it is Friday, February 10. Major big time TGIF kind of Friday for me. On the side panel for LinkedIn news, we find is this a remote Renaissance? Hmm, well, is it or is it just hopium? Let's click on it and find out. In this article, we find remote work is on the rise. According to linked ins workforce Confidence Index. Working on site has been the most common situation for us workers since April 2021. I'm going to butt in and say, Why are we only just now allowed to know that? I've been reporting on that for quite some time. If the powers that be at your company tell you, it's time to come on back or there's the door, guess what? Unless you're independently wealthy, or you have a good nest egg saved up and you're confident you could rebound quickly, you're gonna go back. So we're only just now being told, I guess, officially, that working on site has been the most common situation for us workers since April of 2021. Wow. But data from the past two months shows remote works decline reversing, at least in the short term. In November 2022, there was a 30 point gap between the share of professionals working on site 55% versus those working remotely 25%. Now it's narrowed to 22 points. The latest data shows 28% of professionals working remotely 18% With hybrid arrangements, and 50% reporting mostly on site. Okay, so if we really want to be honest about it, 68% of people are in the office for some amount of time, and only 28% are saying they work completely in a remote capacity now. Sort of like if we can separate everything out, then maybe it can still seem like there's some good news here. If you want to stay remote only. The rise in remote work could be due to a number of factors including winter weather, ad hoc working arrangements, and even company size breed more in the latest edition of LinkedIn workforce insights newsletter. Well, I think I will, I think I will click on that. But yes, you know, there were companies that said we will allow you to work from home during the holiday season. And I'm sure that winter weather did play a factor in this if you couldn't get there if working from home on your laptop was the only option because that was the only option literally. I'm sure that the overlords were okay with that. I mean, there were places where roads were just impassable. We've been in my section in the Midwest, we've been in this weird like doughnut or dome of some kind where things happen to the north of us and then things happen to the south of us but nothing really happens right around here. There's been significant so far. We have had a little bit of snow. We did have some freezing rain and some sleet and the sleet came down like hail. It was crazy. But it kind of lingered around for a few days and then it warmed up enough that everything melted off we did not glory being hallelujah have the kind of ice storm that people had south of here and east of here where power was out for days or even weeks row Were impassable. So yes, if you're living in that situation, you're not going to be able to come on back to the office. It's just a physical impossibility. I feel like this is being put out, I guess it's hopium. I guess you just keep you pacified. I don't know. I don't know what the onus is behind it. But I just don't trust it. Now, that's just my opinion. And I could be wrong, but I don't trust it. When we click on this workforce confidence index, we see a chart is remote work trending up again, the gap between the share of remote workers and those reporting on site appears to be narrowing after a long period of drifting apart New data shows. So when we look, we find that there was a tick upward, in mostly on site 55%, in approximately October of 2022. And then now, January of 2023, that's 50%. Now it couldn't possibly have anything to do with PTO, the holidays, the winter weather, oh, this has to be a new trend. It has to be telling you that the little guy is winning, that he or she is going to be able to fight back against corporate America. They are going to win the remote work war. Sure they are. The source says LinkedIn market research note 247,230 professionals in the US were surveyed from January 16 2021 to January 27 2023. Okay, so that's a large number of people. Also over a large span of time, did they continue serving those same people? Is it a mixed bag of people who got surveyed over different points in time in that two year period? I'm not clear on that. But what feels clear to me is what I see in the market day in and day out, which is much fewer remote only positions. And some of the positions that are advertised as remote are advertised as this is remote only as long as you live within X amount of distance from the home office, which tells me it's really more hybrid than remote and it also tells me they're reserving the right to pull the Lord Elon and say you get your ass back in here or it's your job. Otherwise, why would they do it doesn't even make any sense. Also, we find new layoffs News Corp BarkBox and more. Boy, let's click on that. And the thing of it is like I have to be able to get this out and uploaded and ready for publication in the morning. Between now and tomorrow morning when this episode drops, there will probably be more layoffs. Seems like on the flippin hour we hear about more of them that yet red hot labor market workers market we're still going strong. LinkedIn members are posting about layoffs at dandy a dental software company Bark Box owner bark is getting 12% smaller by cutting 126 jobs. In addition to curbing its use of contractors. I'm gonna button and say, I told you so. You can't count on contract temp assignments and freelance work right now. All of that is feeling the pinch to a lot of times what happens not every time but a lot of times what happens in a recession. The contractors and temps go first. They're typically the first ones to come back as well, because companies are not really sure that they want to bring on somebody full time with benefits until they're all the way Sure. So they'll hire a freelancer or contractor attempt. But man when that bloodbath first hits, it usually hits the contractors and the temps first. So this in my opinion, bogus notion of well, if you get laid off from a job, it's all going to be okay because gig economy that may or may not work out for you. I hope it does. But it may not all of A i A health tech company with about 630 employees has downsized by 35% and let go of 215 employees. News Corp is cutting 1250 positions which is roughly 5% of its workforce by year end. About 1000 People have been laid off at Yahoo as the company restructures its digital ad business. The layoffs represent a workforce reduction of 12% and other 8% or 600 More people will be let go later in the year. Wow. But hey, red hot churn and burn in red hot labor market. Of course it is Disney to cut 7000 jobs amid reshuffle we have talked about that before but I want to read from this article. Disney's first earnings report since Bob Iger has returned to CEO came with two major bombshells, the company is splitting into three parts and it's cutting 7000 jobs around 3% of its workforce, as it aims to reduce costs by roughly $5.5 billion red hot labor market I mean, doesn't it all make complete and total sense red hot labor market? So it's like being brainwashed. Red Hot labor market red hot labor market read on labor market. Sure. JP Morgan to hire Small Biz bankers oh, maybe this is a ray of sunshine let's see. JP Morgan is adding 500 New bankers to its small business division through the end of 2020 for a move that will increase that segments headcount by 20%. Reuters reports. A survey by the bank found that about two thirds of small business owners expect higher sales and profits within the year, even as many gird for a possible recession. It's giving me good just reading this. But the news is a bright spot in the banking industry which has seen high profile layoffs at big names including Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. JP Morgan is making cuts elsewhere. Hundreds of workers and its mortgage unit are being laid off Bloomberg and Reuters report citing anonymous sources. JP Morgan confirmed to American Banker that it had made cuts but did not specify the number. Yeah. And so speaking of hopium in my opinion, who are these small business owners that are feeling confident? Who in small business right now is expecting higher sales and profits within the year? This is a total Seinfeld moment for me who ordered burble I'm not Xena. I'm a small business owner myself. And this may be like that poster of the cat hang in there. You know where the kiddies hanging on by its claws, higher higher sales and more profits. What? on CNBC, we find the gap between Main Street and Wall Street over the economy, recession and inflation is widening. You don't say? Now there's an MSM article that I feel like we can probably get behind in the TLDR key points we read. Stocks boom to start the year and Wall Street banks lowered recession odds on bets that the Fed will pause and possibly even cut rates in an increasingly likely soft landing scenario for the economy. Well, no. Okay. No, the Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week, disinflation has begun, but gave no clear indication to change in restrictive monetary policy is coming. In the small business community, there's been no increased optimism to start the year according to q1 data from CNBC and SurveyMonkey. Nearly half of business owners say the economy is in a recession already. That's because we freaking know that it is Hello. And even more say inflation has yet to peak. Hmm. So who are these small business owners that are feeling confident they think that their profits are going to go up? And you know, in spite of a recession, they feel like it's all going to be okay. What drugs are they taking? What are they smoking? Are they on planet Earth? I'm really not sure. We also find Pepsi easing up on price hikes, lift stock dives on gloomy outlook, how AI will really reshape search, I don't even want to think about that. That's gonna give me such a headache. And nursing homes need intensive care. I get it not a lot of bright, wonderful, sexy, exciting news. There seems like a lot of hot air and hoping them to me which I was ever thus. I'm not going to say anything much different from what I typically say, cannot tell you what to do. Don't tell you what to think. I want you to think for yourself and come to your own conclusions. That's what's best for everybody is to use good critical thinking and rationality. Remember that thing called rationality, whatever happened about? I'm not seeing bright spots. I'm not seeing a soft landing. I'm not seeing inflation evading I'm just not. And again, as I say all the time, I'm in the job market every day. I'm talking to people in real time getting a beat on the street from real human beings, not bots. Trolls, paid shills AI programs that aren't even real. I am not seeing employers moving quickly, by and large. Now. Are there exceptions to that rule? Yes. In the event of a real true emergency. In the event of a real true mission critical position, somebody has suddenly gone out on medical leave somebody resigned and how to take this job and shove it moment somebody got fired with cause and walked out of the building. In those situations. Yes, an employer might Move faster than others right now. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're moving quickly. The FOMO the YOLO, the speed hiring all our speed dating of 2021. No, sir, no, ma'am. If you think that's still going on. I would say you're like the mysterious small business owners that JP Morgan says, feel optimistic and expect higher profits this year. I you know, I'm just not sure what planet that would be coming from. Do you have your job loss Survival Plan roughed out? Do you have an RTO Survival Plan roughed out? If you freelance you own and operate your own business or you enjoy doing temp assignments, whether they're out on your own, you procure them yourself? Or you are reliant on staffing agencies to find them for you? Are you prepared with some kind of plan B, C, D, E, F, G, etc? Have you widened your skill set? If you are in a dying industry, or you are in, let's say, a line of work that's flooded with competition right now? What are you doing about that? If there are hundreds or 1000s of people that do exactly what you do on the job market, and it feels like you're all fighting for scraps? How are you handling that? I know Believe me, ignorance is bliss. Nobody wants to sit and talk about these things. Nobody wants to sit and think about these things. Yet To the victor go the spoils. I've said before that I feel like this whatever this is this downturn recession, depression, stagflation, economic crash, whatever. It's going to separate out the people who paid attention from the ones who didn't. And it's also going to separate out I believe people who use good critical thinking skills from people who just mindlessly scrolled on social media, whatever the overlords told them was fine with them, and they just went along with it. They were too busy reading bullcrap about celebrity gossip. They didn't they didn't want to think about what would happen if I lost my job. What would happen if my freelancing opportunity suddenly went from hero to zero? Overnight? That's a very real reality right now, folks. And nobody is immune to it. You can't sit back and say well I'm so good. I'm so smart. I'm so whatever. Unless you have like Liam Neeson and taken a very specific and special set of skills that are so incredibly niche. Nobody else can do what you do. In my opinion, you'd be wise to be thinking about these survival plans. Stay safe, stay sane. And I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a quick second to subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends. We'll see you next time.

The Causey Consulting Podcast

Saturday Broadcast 35

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