Bonus Episode: People Who Are Not Gonna Make It

In this bonus episode, I want to tackle the question: what do I mean when I say, "There are some people IMO who aren't gonna make it" through whatever economic situation is a'brewing?

Key topics:

✔️ Disclaimer here: this is not advice. I cannot tell you what to do and each person listening to this episode will have a different set of circumstances. This is for your entertainment only.
✔️ What I don't mean: zombies out in the streets eating your brain or anything else that looks like a Hollywood horror movie. 
✔️ If you go to Java Discover and watch their documentaries about people who became homeless during The Great Recession, no one said, "Oh yeah, I saw this coming. I pretty much always imagined I'd be living out of my car."
✔️ If even the "upper Middle Class" is suffering right now, what is happening to the working poor?


Links I mention in this episode:

https://www.youtube.com/c/JavaFilms

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-upper-middle-class-is-getting-squeezed-11658741402?siteid=yhoof2



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

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Transcript

0:15

Welcome to the Causey consulting podcast. You can find us online anytime at Causey consulting llc.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey. Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. In today's bonus episode, I want to talk about what I mean when I say there's just going to be some people who don't make it. I was having this conversation recently with a personal friend. And she said, you definitely need to turn this into a podcast episode, it's gonna ruffle some feathers, there will be some people that probably get mad, but it's still worthy of going out on the airwaves. So here we go, I will offer up my standard boilerplate here. This is not advice of any kind, it is strictly an op ed, me opining for your entertainment only. I'm not a financial advisor or planner, not an economist, not a billionaire or a power broker. This is not advice of any kind. Another thing that I want to preface is, I want to really define what I'm saying here by first talking about what I am not saying. You can go online and find just about anything, whether we're talking about social media or YouTube or whatever platform, you can go online and find almost any opinion that the human mind will conjure up. So when I say there's just going to be some people, in my opinion, who just don't make it, I am not talking about things like World War Z, the zombie apocalypse, Madmax, et cetera. So I am not referring to people laying out in the street with zombies eating their brains. In some respects, it's kind of sad that I have to say that. But the reason why I'm putting that out there is because for some individuals on the internet, when they say you know what, some people are just not going to make it. What they mean is an actual dystopian, apocalyptic type scenario with zombies and marauders eating people out in the street. Now, hey, with that being said, there was recently an article in The New York Times about cannibalism. So who am I to judge maybe the people that are talking about zombification, and things like Soylent Green Escape from New York, blade, runner, et cetera? Maybe those people are right, and I'm wrong, I don't know. But for the purposes of this podcast episode, when I say there's just gonna be some people that don't make it, I am not talking about zombie apocalypse, World War Z, Madmax, et cetera. That's not what I mean. For my purposes, when I say there's just gonna be some people that, in my opinion, are not going to make it. I'm talking on a much more personal financial level, that individuals personal household economy, not working out, whether we're talking about eviction, foreclosure, things getting repoed job loss with no gameplan, about what to do next, and no nest egg and savings, high credit card debt, a lifestyle of living above and beyond their means. People winding up homeless, people winding up having to live out of their vehicle if they still have possession of their vehicle. People who might have never used a food bank, or a charity before needing to turn to those options, people who may have never imagined that they would be homeless, suddenly finding themselves homeless. And if you're sitting there with your arms crossed, thinking, Well, that just sounds pretty far fetched, I would cordially invite you to remember the great recession of 2008. If you were alive at that time, unless you were a kid living at home and you were sheltered from the news and sheltered from reality, I'm sure you probably have a remembrance of what that was like. If you don't remember, or you feel like you need to have your memory refreshed. There's a channel on YouTube called Java discover. Naturally, I'll drop a link to it so you can check it out for yourself. They have a variety of free documentaries that you can watch. And there's no small number of those documentaries that focus on individuals in America. Some of them are about how people survived the pandemic and they're more recent, but some of them are not. Some of them are dated back from like 2011 2012 and they show people and what happened to them during the Great Recession. There are people that never really rebounded from that. There are some people that they rebounded, but it took a long time. There are other people that had to resort to living in their car, or living in a tent. city living out of motels. It's very eye opening. So if you feel that you need a refresher for what that time period was like, go to Java discover on YouTube and check out those documentaries. It's, um, it's not light hearted, fair, that's for sure. Now I'm going to pop up and give another disclaimer, at the risk of sounding a broken record, I feel like I have to do it. Because unfortunately, common sense is really not that common anymore. Everything that I'm about to say in regards to the types of people that in my opinion, are probably not going to make it is just that it's my opinion. As Dennis Miller has always said, it's just my opinion, and I could be wrong. This is for your entertainment only don't take it as gospel truth. So here we go. One type of person that's probably not going to make it, in my opinion, are the right fighters, the people who would argue with a signpost or argue with a corpse. They just want to argue and be contrary to be contrary, you could tell them the most common sensical thing, if you walk outside and the sky is blue, and it's plainly blue, then they want to tell you that it's red, they would just argue and argue and argue just to argue, they want to turn every conversation into a Lincoln Douglas debate where by God, somebody is going to be right and somebody is going to be wrong. And in their mind, they're going to be for sure the one and the right. And they will bloviate and argue until basically you just give up, you get to the point where you're like, This is dumb, it's a waste of my time, it's a waste of my breath. And I'm just done. I'm done. And I'm out. People like that. They're beyond reason, because they're so focused on wanting to be the one quote in the right, that they can't even get into basic human reason. They're just so focused on making everything an argument where someone's going to win and someone's going to lose. Another sort of closely related group of people that I would say are probably not going to make it, in my opinion, are individuals who seem to be incapable of using their own common sense, and their own critical thinking. Now, just to be clear, we're not talking about people who they have some kind of diminished mental capacity. Maybe they have someone that's been appointed their guardian, they might be in a home, like there's something going on where dementia or Alzheimer's has taken a toll on their brain, and they're not able to think as clearly as they could before. That's not who I'm talking about. I'm talking about people who are of sound mind, they have the ability to use reason and common sense. They're just flat out refusing to do that. They'd rather listen to trolls and bots, and Bs artists on social media, some of whom are programmed to push an agenda, in my opinion, they would rather listen to those people then look around with their own eyes and their own ears and go, Oh, something is not matching up here. For whatever reason, I tend to find those types the most often on channels and platforms dedicated to real estate. I don't know why that is. But that just seems to be a place where they are lurking. People who are convinced or they're trying to convince others, that we are not in a housing market bubble. This is not 2007 2008 houses will only appreciate in value. I mean, there's just no way that we could ever have another housing market crash. The loans that have been given out are totally solid. And the people who took out those giant mortgages, they are doing great. Even if they took out an arm and the rate goes way up and they're woefully unprepared for it. They are doing great. They are flush with cash. You know, I read that. Okay, just speaking for myself. And my common sense, my critical thinking and my skills of observation tell me that is a load of steaming bull poop. That does not sync up with what I'm saying. Around here in the Midwest, I'm already seeing people who either have extreme buyer's remorse or they have overloaded their butts, and now they're trying to get rid of those overpriced FOMO houses they just had to have last summer. So do I personally think we there's just no way that we would ever see a housing market crash again, or that everybody's doing great and they can afford these overpriced homes? No, I personally don't that does not match up with what I'm saying. And to piggyback onto that, about the job market, as we continue to see layoffs and hiring freezes rescinded offers etc. What will people do if they had a job that seemed to be rock solid last summer, they got qualified for a mortgage, they bought a house that was you know, and I don't know 100% or 200% Oh, overpriced. They're paying an exorbitant mortgage, what if they lose their job? What if they're in a situation where it's taking both themselves and their spouse or partner to afford the home and they both become unemployed at about the same time. There's just no way that those people have billions of dollars in savings, and they will just be doing fine. No problems. I'm sorry, I just don't believe that. So in my mind, in my opinion, people who are reading this kind of BS nonsense about everybody's doing great, people have a ton of money, the housing market will never crash. Again, the job market could never crash, everything, everything is fine. Everything is great. If they believe that stuff, who, in my opinion, probably not gonna make it another type of person who, in my opinion, probably not gonna make it, or the denial lists, everything is fine. Things are good. This might just be a little transitional bump in the road, but everything is fine. They may have the overarching view that everything is fine. Or they may make it more personal well, the guy down the street or girl, you know, he might wind up being homeless, or he might wind up with a job loss or he might wind up up to his eyeballs and credit debt. Not me. Well, that's good. Yeah, has never happened to me. And it's like, there are a good many people during the Great Recession who thought the same thing, where if you watch those documentaries on Java discovery, they don't. When they're putting a microphone in somebody's face and talking to them, they don't go Oh, yeah, I totally expected to be homeless. I totally expected to get evicted. I mean, this was my dream. Growing up, I wanted to be living in a tent. Nobody says that. So I think we do have to be careful of getting into a denialist mindset of, well, an economic hardship might happen to someone else, or it might happen overall, was sort of a sea of faceless people I'm never going to meet but it could never knock on my doorstep. Personally, I don't have to plan ahead. I don't have to think ahead, let the peons and the plebs do that, but I will be just fine. There was an article published in The Wall Street Journal on July 25. And it reads, the upper middle class is getting squeezed. The first two years of the pandemic were good for the group savings and investments. But 2022 isn't. Now I think you may have to be a subscriber to read the whole thing. So I'm not going to be able to get into it very much for you. But I will tell you what I am able to read here and I'll do that now. Mark, you had a profitable pandemic. Like many Americans, he added to his savings and pulled in big gains from the stock market rally. He purchased a house in his new hometown of McAllen, Texas than a duplex and an eight unit apartment complex in Cleveland. But 2022 hasn't been so kind. His expenses have grown because of the higher costs for gas groceries and the dog food for his for German Shepherds. The value of his stock holdings is shrinking. He is sending more money back to his family in the Philippines to help them cope with rising prices there. A cracked foundation in his new house costs 10s of 1000s of dollars to repair and quote, because that's as far as I can go without subscribing which I am not going to do that. Hi, that story also highlights one of the reasons why people are having buyer's remorse about some of the homes that were purchased during the height of FOMO. Last summer, people waving inspections, people buying just based on the pictures, not even going in looking. There was a property that I saw, I saw the pictures of it, I saw the location, I thought this might be all right. And when I went on a little drive by to survey the scene, get a sense of what's around it and how the house looks in the flesh. Lord have mercy. Oh, I mean, I knew I'm like in order for them to unload this place, especially for the price that they put on it, someone is going to have to buy this sight unseen. They're going to have to rely on the photographs and the Google map because if they get out here and they see this insane mess, they are never, ever, ever, ever going to buy it. Apparently nobody took the bait because the house is still on the market. But some people purchased houses not realizing that they were buying a limit. The house had a variety of problems that are often not cheap to fix, that they might have realized that the neighbors are all a holes, they may have figured out that they bought into a high crime area that they didn't really want to be in once they got there. So that's one situation that's been brewing up. But some of the people as this article highlights that would be considered upper middle class, although, I don't know I might debate that if you have the money to be buying a new house. Listen, you've got a big investment portfolio, and then you're also buying apartment complexes and investment properties. I'm not really sure in my definition that I would say that's upper middle class. But anyway, I digress. The point is even people have means people with some real economic purchasing power, are feeling the squeeze now. So the question then becomes, how squeezed are people that are living paycheck to paycheck that don't have that kind of economic means they would look at somebody like that and be like, Oh, well, how nice for you that you're able to buy apartment complexes, and you've got four gigantic dogs, I mean, hello, let's just think about that. Even people that are considered upper middle class that have some purchasing power, are feeling squeezed. Now, I think we have to be careful about living in denial and saying, Well, okay, that guy had a bunch of dogs, and he went and got investment properties. But I don't do that. So I could just never have any kind of hardship. Don't be so sure. Another type of person, in my opinion, who's probably not going to make it are individuals who think that the great resignation will last forever, the band will never stop playing. And they will be able to relentlessly job hop all over the market for time in memoriam and they will always be able to get an increasing amount of money every single time that they make a quantum leap. And if for whatever reason, the job market or the economy refuses to grant that wish for them, then they will just bail out, they will somehow be able to make money, I guess conjuring it from thin air until they get what they want. Markets are cyclical. And if you've lived long enough, then you've probably been through more than one cycle, what goes up must come down. But it doesn't stay down. bear markets. And recessions don't last forever. On the other side of the coin, bull markets and rallies don't last forever, either. I'm very hesitant to listen to anybody that says, Well, this is a bull market, that's just going to last forever, and the band's never going to stop playing and the stock market will just go up and up and up. Okay, all right, or on the other side of the coin, society is going to collapse overnight, and we're going into a bear market that will never recover from zombies are going to eat your brain out in the street. Okay. Based on what I'm seeing in the job market in real time, I believe that we are in a transitional period. We're in like this murky pool of water where the great resignation is still happening. But it has subsided significantly. Then at the same time, you have employers pulling back on hiring and starting to say, You know what, the pendulum went way too far to the other side. And we want to start taking control back. Now, I would argue, and I think you could I think the argument could definitely be made that actually the great resignation is over with its toast, we need to stop thinking about it. We need to start looking at this transitional period and getting a game plan together about what happens next. How would you weather the storm of a job loss? How do you plug in and accompany and become integral to the operation etc. An argument can be made for all of that. Just speaking in general, not everybody has gotten that memo. Okay. Not everybody is aware of the fact that in my opinion, we're already in a recession right now, that in my opinion, unemployment is not really 3.6%. In my opinion, there's not really two legitimate open jobs for everyone unemployed person. A lot of the jobs listed, in my opinion are either bogus, and they're posted for optics only. They're evergreen orders that have been open ever since Moses was put in the basket in the bullrushes. Nobody's ever going to probably be hired for him. Or they may be jobs that don't even pay a living wage and don't carry any benefits with them. I in my opinion, not all that glitters is gold. So you have this collision of candidates, some of whom have figured out, okay, I need to pump the brakes on job hopping and get very intentional and strategic about what I do next, or what I don't do next. Then you have the types of candidates that I'm talking about who have just decided they have just made an executive decision for themselves, that the band is never going to stop playing on the great resignation. And they will be able to Job hop and get 20 or 30% Pay bumps every single time for the rest of their career. They haven't stopped to think like is that? Is that realistic? Does that seem to be something that I think corporate America is going to afford me? Am I going to be able to go from 60k and then 80 and then 100 and then 150? And then I don't know within five years, I'm the grand Pooh bah of the entire company and I'm making a $5 million salary. Does that seem to be realistic? In their mind? I guess it is. And that's why I say in my opinion, people like that. Probably not gonna make it I cannot and will not give anybody advice. What I would say to myself in this situation is, you know, self, it's time to get very selfish. It's time to think about myself and my family, what's best for our personal economy. I'm not going to worry about corporate America, because they're doing all right. Corporate America at the end of the day is going to look out for itself. They're going to take care of themselves. They don't answer to me, they answer to the shareholders and the investors and the power brokers, but not to me. It's one big club and I am not a part of it. So I need to be thinking about what is best for myself, my career and my family. What can I do in terms of income generation to make sure that come what may whatever might be coming down the pike in this wackadoodle economy? I want to know that I know that I know that we're going to survive. Once again, just my opinions and I could be wrong. I hope you found this episode entertaining. And I will see you in the next episode. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you haven't already, please take a quick second to subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.