Rumblings of "official" words

As I've said many, many times: IMO, if you wait to be "officially" told, you're waiting too late. The cracks in the foundation that have been obvious to some of us are only just now being reported on in MSM sources.

Links

https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/07/10/yes/

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hidden-recession-red-flag-hidden-100000573.html

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gen-zer-sparked-quiet-quitting-160844170.html

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1125110/10776383


Links where I can be found: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/01/30/updates-housekeeping/

Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/ 

Transcript

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. In today's episode, I want to talk about rumblings of official words. As I have said, I don't even know how many umpteen 1000 times now between this podcast and my blogs, in my opinion, if you are waiting to be officially told whether you're waiting for some official proclamation of a recession, you're waiting for some official proclamation of an economic downturn, an official proclamation that the great resignation is over and has been for quite some time, an official proclamation that the job market is not doing so hot. You're waiting way too late. Some of the cracks in the foundation that have been obvious to I don't know those of us with common sense who care to pay attention. You're only just now getting the rumblings. The Oh, I think maybe things are starting to go downhill. Oh, you're only just now getting that type of word from mainstream media outlets only just now. And I know this is going to sound terrible. And I don't mean any kind of personal disrespect anybody. All I can say is, if you're only just now looking around and tuning into reality, heaven help you. Because in my opinion, which could be wrong. In my opinion, you're too far behind the eight ball. At this point, if you're only just now, only just now looking around and saying Oh, hmm. Are things changing? You mean, there's not two legit open jobs for every one unemployed person? Employers have the upper hand again, and they know it. Oh, wow. If you're in that position, better late than never, I guess. But Wowza Are you behind. On Monday, I published a blog post just simply titled Yes. Because sometimes that's all you can do is just cut right to the point. Because on Sunday, LinkedIn finally asked the question, our employers regaining control. And it's like, huh, do you think and that was based on the New York Times, writing an article that the great resignation had ended. And unlike? Well, I guess this is yet another case of Better late than never. But I scooped that way, way before you heard it in mainstream media, going all the way back to June 15 of last year, not June 15 of this year, but June 15 of last year, in a post I wrote called cynics and the coffee drinking dog. I told you, in my humble opinion, that great resignation is done. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But it's toast now. I warn you, it was palpable for me. I've told this story on the air before but I will tell it to you again. For me, it was palpable January 1 of 2020 to 2021, it really was churning and burning. I had more business than I knew what to do with. And it really felt like if you were good at staffing and recruiting the world was your oyster. It probably felt much the same way for realtors in the FOMO and the Yolo of the housing market. People were busy. Talent Acquisition departments HR departments, busy, busy, busy, busy. And then the shift January 1 of 2022. Can I explain it to you logically, chapter and verse? No, I can't. It was just something I felt. And as time went on, it was that sense of hesitation that I started to see from employers. Well, the position has been open for a while now. Do we really need to hire for it? Well, we've got to look at our budget. Maybe we should scale back. It's just that initial just little waver a little bit of hesitation. I know how to read it because I've been in the job market for all these years, every single day. I can read the ebbs and flows really well. And when I when I saw that hesitation, I just knew like oh, the tides turning. Things are changing. And I hope that people get as much out of the great resignation as possible because it will not last forever. So imagine if you're only just now only just now realizing oh, Oh, oh shit. What if the great resignation is over? What if I can't hippity hop across the job market? If I get fired or laid off? What if I can't quickly rebound from that and replace my job? long pause there. So you can think about that. Because I guarantee you, there are people that you know, even if you are not one of them, I guarantee you, there are people you know, in your life that have that grasshopper who's saying all summer mentality, and or they put way too much faith in corporate controlled media outlets, to tell them the truth. They go on social media, and they listen to the hot air and hopium crowd telling them that the great resignation will go on forever, the balance of power would remain with candidates for a very long time, blah, blah, blah. They listened to that. And they believed it because it's what they wanted to hear. It's very sad to me, because it seems like so much communication anymore is not based on getting the truth out there. Or even just searching for truth. I get that. There's a philosophical line of thinking that you're never going to know some sort of objective truth anyway. It's in the eye of the beholder, our senses are limited, I get that. But my God at least have some quest for the truth. At least try. At least try to go beyond propaganda and lies and hokum. A lot of people don't want to do that anymore. They want quick sound bites and quick snippets to tell them whatever it is, they already think, gives me confirmation bias tells me something warm and fluffy and fuzzy. Tell me what I want to hear. And if you don't, then I'll get butthurt and upset. on Yahoo Finance, published Tuesday, July 11. By way of fortune, we find there's a hidden recession red flag in the latest jobs report, according to two top economists hmm, you don't say, you know, I'm not an economist, but me thinks that there have been a number of red flags hidden in these damn job report. So in this we read, the Bureau of Labor Statistics job report for June contained a pivotal number that may well raise the first convincing statistical signpost that the US economy has made the turn and is heading for a recession. I'm going to button right there. And I'm gonna say it again. By the time you are officially told, You're waiting too late. You're only just now being told this is raising the first convincing statistical signposts that the US has made the turn and it's heading for a recession. Oh my god. What will it look like? If somebody ever does try it out and say we're in a recession now? How bad will it really be? That's the view of two top economists one from Wall Street, the other from academia who closely watched the employment figures to spot in during trends, as well as way what the Fed engineered money supply shrinkage and apparent determination to keep hiking rates for tell the path forward. This jobs report harbored the first indicator that the US will slow down a lot, and by our forecast in a recession in the second half of 2023. Well, are we not in the second half of 2023 says Eugenio Aleman, chief economist for brokerage, Raymond James adds will Luthor any kind of an economics professor at Florida Atlantic University, when the jobs numbers are suddenly Wowza suddenly, when the job numbers are suddenly pointing towards weakness and rapidly falling inflation, the Feds plans to keep over tightening puts the economy on dangerous ground in quote. Alright. A lot a lot going on there. So forecast in our recession in the second half of 2023. Will we're in the second half of 2023. Are we not? Okay. Suddenly, the jobs numbers suddenly point toward weakness? No. No damage? In my opinion, no. I have told you for quite some time now. I've been recording Saturday broadcasts for over a year telling you a storm is coming. Poopoo is hitting the fan. I hope you're getting prepared in whatever way that makes sense for you. And RTO survival plan a job loss survival plan, having your network of people that you know like and trust ready to go. I hope that you are suddenly pointing towards weakness. Okay. Right. I disagree with that wholeheartedly. I don't think there's been anything sudden about this. The feds plans to keep over tightening puts the economy on dangerous ground. Well, we'll see. We'll see. You have people that are chomping at the bit for the Fed to go back to the age of easy money to go back to QE giving out loans willy nilly at low interest rates mean to exhibit a the housing market if it pleases the court remember all the FOMO in the Yolo of 2020 and 2021, where interest rates were really low, but the home prices were really high. And people were justifying overpaying for a duty poop house with the idea that well, what if interest rates are never this low again in my lifetime? What if this is the last chance Express?

Also, in this article, the surge in city and state employment masks the softness and what matters most private jobs. For both economists the big warning sign in the BLS stats released on July 7 was the tepid increase in private jobs that continues a steady downward trend. The headline number for June was what appeared to be a fairly robust gain of 209,000 total positions. But an unusually large contributor was the 60,000 rise in government jobs representing nearly 30% of the total increase. In fact, government hiring almost entirely generated at the state and local levels, has already created a towering 371,000 jobs in 2023 36%. More than the figure for all of 2022 and 90%. Beyond the full year count for 2019. And that last pre pandemic year, one in eight newly employed Americans went to work in the public sector versus the one in three reading for June. By contrast, businesses big and small added only 149,000 workers in June. That compares two average monthly advances of 344,020 22 and 216,020 19. Especially revealing is the cascading trajectory, you find the private sectors headcount swelled by 461,000 in January, and a last blowout, oh, what a description a last blowout, before the upward slope flatten to 180,000 in February. Since then, the numbers have been mostly falling month after month, but the government tally has stayed consistently strong, giving the BLS as monthly headline makers an unsustainable lift up shot. Once you strip out the government bolt, the private sector creation numbers are feeble, and getting more so in quote. Yep. So in this article, they conclude that the job numbers point to a looming recession. I don't think that there's some looming recession out there on the horizon. I've used the analogy before this recession being like Brigadoon one day, it's just gonna rise from the mist mysteriously. I think we're already in a recession, we have been for quite some time. Now. Even though the official definition of a recession was changed to make it seemed like we are not in a recession and that it's some lurking boogeyman out there somewhere, maybe on the horizon. So, so much chicanery that can happen with these numbers. It's crazy to think about, also, not in my opinion, unrelated note, also on Yahoo Finance by way of fortune, and also published on Tuesday, July 11, we find the Gen Z or who sparked the quiet quitting movement has left his corporate career because it turned out mentally checking out of a job doesn't work. I saw that headline and just laughed. Oh, I laughed. Yeah, if you back back when that was like the buzzword du jour, if you wrote anything recorded anything at all about quiet coding good, bad or indifferent, you would get absolutely pummeled with downloads. And I really think a lot of people again, this goes back to telling people what they want to hear, give people fluffy lies rather than a comfortable truth. I think a lot of people wanted to consume that content because they wanted someone to tell them, It's okay to quiet quit eff your employer, just do whatever. And I was a voice saying, okay, but wait a minute, wait just a minute. I understand the logic of not going way above and beyond and not allowing your employer to exploit you. I also remember what it was like during the great recession when you did whatever it took to keep your job because you didn't want to get churned out. I remember all of those phone calls. And all of those walk ins of people was please let me drop off my resume. If you have anything, I'll scrub the toilets, I'll do anything. It was a brutal time. And whatever you need to do to not get fired just what you did. The idea of this quiet quitting trend at that point in time would have been anathema. I mean, people would have just been like, well, if you want to get fired, it'd be turned out on the street with nowhere to go. You go right ahead and you do that. So I just I find it. Interesting. It's an interesting bit of spin, shall we say? The Jin Z or who sparked the quiet quitting movement has left his corporate career because it turned out mentally checking out of a job does it work? Yeah. I I've recorded an episode before, called, you're not going to beat the system. I knew that was going to ruffle some feathers for one thing, because it's primarily about Oliver Stone's movie JFK. But when you tell people you're not going to beat the system, okay? You're not going to have some nationwide walk out against our to where people starve themselves and their children to be work from home ideologues, it's not going to effing happen. The minute that you tell people, you're not going to beat the system, and this fantasy is not going to come true for you. They get mad, they don't want to hear it. So I find this I just I find the timing of it interesting. And I find the text of it. Interesting. So here we go. Let's get in. Last July is iecon uploaded a 17 second tic toc video about quitting the idea of going above and beyond. And the term quiet quitting has been on the tip of workers tongues since after discovering the term the 25 year old engineers video explanation captured the attention of more than 3.6 million people worldwide. You're still performing your duties, but you're no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life. The reality is it's not. And your worth as a person is not defined by your labor, he says in the viral video. But I would agree with not getting into hustle culture mentality, thinking that work has to be your life and that your worth as a human being on this planet is defined by your labor. I would agree with all of that. I think some people mutated quiet quitting to me do nothing. sit at your desk, surfing your cell phone and wait to get fired. Even though that's maybe not what the definition of quiet quitting was meant to be. In the beginning. It was meant to be exactly what this person is saying. You're still performing your duties. You're just not getting into hustle culture and you're not living to work. Some people took the idea, put it on steroids and then said screw it. I'm gonna sit here and do absolutely nothing. Some people did that. I'll continue to read. Soon after the clip was posted of the quiet putting hashtag caught fire and reached workers and most corners of the globe from the UK and Europe to the US. Today. Over 858 million people have glazed their eyes glaze their eyes over content using the quiet quitting hashtag on tick tock alone. But now it looks like Khan is backtracking on the app anti capitalist slam dunk that he inadvertently made a viral sensation last summer. Boy, there's a mouthful there. The novelty of quiet quitting soon wore off. I was all for the idea of withholding labor from companies who don't care about us concept and an updated video on his Tiktok channel last month. In practice. This looked like being less responsive taking on less work and not working full eight hour days. But the novelty of quiet quitting soon wore off and was replaced by paranoia. Hmm. It's almost like somebody should have been on the airwaves warning you that that's exactly what was going to effing happen. Oh, wait. I did. Who could it be? Believe it or not? It's just me. I did. Back on June 23 of last year, I recorded an episode titled quiet quitting part two. And I'll read the description for you here. In my humble opinion, it's time to get selfish. Be thinking about what's best for yourself and your family. key topics. As I've said before, influencers can leave you broke. If you take questionable advice from someone online, are they going to help you out if you get fired? Nope. I would also recommend being strategic and careful about who you're listening to someone who's been in recruiting for all five minutes. And who thinks it's a wise idea to ride out a recession. By doing the bare minimum, it's probably not your friend just saying. I had a friend who tried to ride out the.com Bust by surfing the internet at work and doing well basically nothing. It was all fun and games until she got fired and had a tough time rebounding from it. There's a middle path between hustle culture and total don't give up. If you don't have to work 16 hours a day or sell your soul to accompany to be productive, get out of all or nothing thinking. I stand by that assessment. There is a middle ground between hustle culture balls to the walls versus I don't care. I'm just going to sit here and wait to get fired. And by the way, here's an addendum to that story. My friend who tried to ride out the.com Bust by surfing the internet at work and who got fired and then had a tough time rebounding from it. She really never has all the way rebounded from that. She's really and I know this is gonna sound awful. It's gonna sound judgmental. I'm going to get hate mail for it. That's okay. She really has just had a string of BS jobs. Just one bad not paying very well job after another after another.

I would just be so careful. I don't give you advice. I don't tell you what to do or what not to do. But if it were me, I would be very careful with the idea of trying to just sit and do the bare minimum or sit and do nothing at all and wait to get fired in a freaking recession. I'll go back to this Yahoo Finance article and continue to read, despite by his own account having an under the radar job that meant he could get away with underperforming he found himself troubled with a looming fear that you're going to be found out and fired. Oh, do you think? And do you think that posting your business on social media might hasten that? hailer? Some of us in Gen X? Man, I am so glad you have no idea. I am so so glad that we grew up before social media and the proliferation of cell phones and cameras being everywhere. God, it was great. But no you don't you don't need to be putting all of your business out on Front Street. If you have decided eff this place, I'll just deal with the consequences later and I'm going to quiet quit, you know, it would seem to me that maybe posting that on social media might not be the most helpful thing to do. This he claims was followed by an existential dread of what am I actually doing with my life. warned you about that, too. I took some heat from a guy over on medium. I think he was just looking for a reason to be offended. I don't think he actually read what I wrote. I think he was just looking to be a butthole. But I had talked about how in, in my mind, this traditional old school definition of retirement where you sit in a rocking chair, and you watch the sunrise and you drink your coffee, and you listen to the birds chirp. And then you do nothing basically with your life. And then you go back out and you watch the sunset and the birds chirp and you have your afternoon or evening time tea or whatever. That's not a life, just sitting on a porch for that length of time every day. That's not a life, in my opinion. It's not. And I have also told you if your life becomes the boob too, if you're like, Screw it, I'm just gonna sit here and play on my cell phone and scroll social media or watch something on a streaming platform and just try to get paid for it. What What kind of life is that? Do you want to be on your deathbed and say, Well, I did watch a lot of streaming content. I did do a lot of due scrolling on social media. So I guess that's something I know most people don't want that. You don't necessarily have to have a corporate job, but it's like, don't you want to feel that you created something you produce something like something in your life matter. I'll continue to read. Khan tried to use the energy and mental load freed from not pouring all his not pouring his all into his job into extracurricular activities. But spending more time creating music producing Tiktok content didn't quite leave him feeling any more content than he was before he embarked on quiet quitting. What's more, his team started raising suspicion about how much work he was or wasn't doing. It was then that he realized the only way out of his career slump was out the front door. It wasn't until I made the decision to actually leave my job that I just felt this enormous weight lifted off my shoulders. He told insider, it's a decision I wish more people could make because I do think life is too short to be dissatisfied wherever you are. Because the reality is work does consume so many hours of our lives. Yeah. Now, of course, one way that we could look at this one cynical way that we could look at this is the potential that it's американская пропаганда, right, more specifically, corporate propaganda, hey, if you quiet quit, you're going to be unfulfilled. All you're going to do is feel bad about it later, you might as well hustle and give it your all. That's one potential interpretation for all this not saying it's the correct interpretation. I don't know. I'm just telling you. That's one potential way that a person could choose to look at this article. I would say that for for my opinion, like, when you do one of those exercises of if you won the lottery tomorrow, and money was no object. Let's say you have Jeff Bezos Bill Gates kind of money and you were sitting pretty. What would you do? How would you spend your time? What would your days and your nights look like? I would not want to just sit in front of a TV I'm sorry. I wouldn't want to just do that or consume hours upon hours of social media. I would still want to get out and do something. For me, that would most certainly involve continued efforts for animal rescue and rehabilitation. I would if I had that kind of money, I wouldn't be able to expand to buy more land and to be able to adopt and foster and shelter more animals who needed that kind of cater to have a nicer bigger barn to have bigger, nicer facilities. So that could accommodate more animals that had special needs and considerations maybe like a climate controlled barn or horse stables, something like that. Yeah, if I had that kind of money, of course, I would do things like that. But that's still work. It most definitely is. I mean, it takes a lot of time out of your day to be taken care of those animals that are in need to that degree. I can't imagine doing anything else. The idea of just sitting and Mindlessly scrolling, social media, really just sitting and doing anything for long periods of time. We've heard before this seemingly new cliche that sitting is the new smoking, I just don't think the human body was meant to be cramped, or crammed into a desk or cubicle under fluorescent lighting for hours on end. I don't think that's natural. I don't think that's healthy. So the idea of just screw it just quite quit everything. Just sit, sit and be a slug sit and do the bare minimum like Yeah, I think at some point, most people are going to look around and go solar is really this gaming the system and feeling like I'm really raging against the machine by doing this. I promise you you're not. No, you're not going to beat that system. I like Jocko willings podcast episode about figure out the rules of the game and how to play it. You have to do that. You have to do that you have to figure out what the rules are. And and how you can make the system work best for you. Because you're you're not going to beat the system. You're not going to get out from underneath it. If you think that you are I would worry for you. I will pray for you. I know that sounds down I know that it does. But look, coming back to my original point here if you're waiting to be officially told you're waiting to wait, because we're only just now getting the initial rumblings of oh, there could be hidden recession red flags in this latest job report. You guys. The great resignation is oh with like, oh my god, do employers have the upper hand? Oh my god, the Gen Z or who sparked quiet putting has decided it doesn't work. After all. If you wait for these types of official proclamations rather than using your own common sense, in my opinion, you are waiting too late. Stay safe, stay sane, and I will see you in the next episode.

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