⚠️ We're in Act 1 ⚠️

I've been reporting that I think we've moved from the Opening Prologue of this mess into Act 1. These "early" warnings about a recession causing millions of jobs to vanish and how white collar workers will be hit the hardest may be the only warnings  you get from MSM sources.

By the time we reach Act 2, it may be too late to adequately prepare. Do you have an RTO Survival Plan? Do you have a Job Loss Survival Plan? If not, what are you waiting for?

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/recession-may-put-1m-jobs-at-risk-5297681/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-19/even-a-mild-us-recession-comes-with-steep-price-in-lost-jobs

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/white-collar-jobs-now-more-elusive-6309418/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fed-interest-rate-hikes-unemployment-increase-layoffs-inflation/


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

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

Siren courtesy of Pixabay. 

Transcript

Unknown: 0:06

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. I wanted to hop on and record this quick bonus episode to say, I really feel that we're in Act One of whatever this mess is or about to be. I've reported before on other broadcasts when I felt like we were in dress rehearsal, when I felt like we transition to the opening prologue. And now I feel that we're in Act One. What's my evidence? What has me thinking in that direction? Well, for one thing, remember the economists and commentators and talking heads who assured us that we would not see mass layoffs. And then when we saw mass layoffs, so much so that trackers were having difficulty reporting all of them. We were told, oops a daisy, don't worry, because this will only be big tech and Silicon Valley. So if you're not working in that sector, you're going to be just fine. Then when mass layoffs spread, which by the way they typically do, anybody that's been through this before can tell you that when we started to see mass layoffs spreading through other sectors, it was crickets and tumbleweeds. The same so called economists and commentators who told you that we wouldn't see mass layoffs at all, were soundly proven wrong, and then didn't even come back to the table with anything. We didn't even get an excuse of, oh, well, I had bad data. Oh, I've read the figures incorrectly. Oh, it was an unprecedented time. They just disappeared. And I feel like that's what Grifters do, they'll make a prediction that turns out to be complete BS. And then when it's time to own up to the mistake, nothing, crickets and tumbleweeds. And I feel like by the time that we get anything resembling an official declaration of, okay, it's a recession now. Okay, it's a global financial crisis, okay, we're in one hell of a mess. By the time that happens, I'm not convinced that there's going to be much of anything you can do to help yourself, you're just gonna have to ride the wave. I don't give you advice, and I don't tell you what to do. For myself and my household, it's been extremely important to wargame out the strategies that I talked about here. I don't get on the airwaves like a hypocrite and say, well, in my mind, it's really good to have an RTO Survival Plan and the job loss survival plan. If you freelancer you own and operate your own business probably be a good idea to have a plan B, C, D, about how you would earn a living. If the primary way that you're doing it now dries up. I don't get on here and say those things. And then meanwhile, I'm spending like a crazy person and goofing off and sleeping half the day. No, no, I can tell you as can my family that I have definitely pinch the pennies clamped down and thought about alternative revenue streams. I've also worked out an RTO survival plan for myself, a job loss survival plan for myself, who would I call first? Where would I start looking? What what network could I really lean on the fastest for the highest degree of help, they're already aware of who they are, I'm not just going to ambush them out of nowhere. And I haven't done that in a sense of defeatism. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I know from my first iteration of self employment, what it feels like to jump off a cliff, hoping that the parachute is going to open on the way down and instead, you wind up like wily coyote at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with an anvil on his head. I don't recommend that was not a good experience for me. And it threw me into a dark night of the soul. I had suicidal thoughts, I was very, very depressed. I don't want to go through that again. So for me Wargaming out the strategy of worst case scenario, I have to roll up the sidewalks on this business, or I have to just do it part time as a side hustle. And I have to go back to some soul crushing job in a cube farm. How would we handle that? How would I handle it spiritually and emotionally? And then how would the household handle it? Because working from home and then having a farm and ranch, there are certain things that I have primary responsibility for. And we would really have to make some changes. So we've working those things out. I don't get on here and tell you that information. And then I lollygag and goof around and act like a doofus all day. We have done those things. And I really feel it's just my opinion, and I could be wrong, but I really feel that if we get any kind of official proclamation of the shitstorm by the time that happens, it's probably going to be too late for you to really do anything to help yourself. I hope I'm wrong about that. But you know, living in the Midwest and being in Tornado Alley, by the time Um, that the tornado is bearing down on you. Your option is to get in a basement, get in the bathtub, get into an interior closet, get in a safe room, you're going to have to find shelter wherever you're at. Because the option of calling somebody on the phone in the midst of the tornado and saying, Hey, can you come get me? Or, Hey, I saw that you install safe rooms? Is there any way that you could come and do that for me now? Because there's a tornado warn storm? Approximately two minutes from my house? No, no, by the time the storm is there, you're gonna have to hunker down and write it out, wherever you're at when it hits. That is reality. Those of you who live in hurricane prone areas, earthquake prone areas, you understand to when stuff happens like that, you're just gonna have to play the hand that you're dealt, and in my opinion, it's smarter to make sure that the hand you're holding is the best that it possibly can be. Couple of headlines that hit over the weekend, really made me think, okay, okay. This might be the most warning that some people get, you know, I said, I feel like we're in Act One, because we've had the mass layoffs. And no, they haven't just been contained to Silicon Valley and big tech, we've seen bank failures, some of the biggest that we have seen since 2008. The job market is not robust and churning and burning. No, it isn't. I do not for one second believe that we sincerely have a 3.4% unemployment rate in this country. Another thing that convinces me is that you're starting to see these little snippets of warning, little snippets of discontent. Nobody has officially rang the alarm bell to say we aren't in a recession now. No, and we may never get that I'm not exactly sure how all of this is going to play out. And what kind of political and mainstream media spin will be placed around it. When it becomes so bad that it's irrefutable that even the most tuned out for him that you have that watches tick tock and plays video games all day, looks around and says Holy smokes, this is bad. I don't know how the spin doctors are going to do the spin. But man, by the time it gets that bad things are gonna be rough, things are gonna be rough. So a couple of headlines that I want to highlight. Both of them come from LinkedIn. But actually there's three of them. Two of them come from LinkedIn. And then another one comes from Bloomberg, but they're intertwined. Recession may put 1 million plus jobs at risk. Even a mild recession, such as the one that's widely forecast to hit later this year. I'm going to pause just right there. This is another reason why I think we're in Act One. Act Two, act three, what will we see quite possibly things that we saw in the Great Recession slash global financial crisis of oh eight, no nine, there are certain things that are considered to be lagging indicators. And, for example, if somebody goes through like a bankruptcy or a foreclosure, all of the dominoes don't fall at one time. If the bank wants to foreclose on a house, that person doesn't get thrown out of the house, the very first month where they miss a payment, it builds up. I think the process takes a year, maybe more. So I would not at all be surprised if we saw that kind of ripple effect. Again, we could see that kind of ripple effect not only in residential homes, but also in corporate real estate. I feel like that's one of the reasons why these bosses and CEOs are pushing so damn hard for a return to the office. They want butts back in those seats at the commercial real estate locations. So when they're talking about why we forecast to hit later this year, How bad will it really be? What will the timeline really be? What will act two and act three and the sort of de noir conclusion of the play look like? I don't know. In some respects, I don't want to know. But they're telling you a mild recession, such as the one that's widely forecast to hit later this year. I feel like you would do well to pay attention to that would cost the country hundreds of 1000s of jobs. Most Wall Street economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect gross domestic product to begin contracting in the third quarter, two consecutive quarters of contraction signal and official recession. Oh, but see, we had that last year. And they changed the technical definition of a recession. So they wouldn't have to tell you, John and Jane Q Public, those of us in the working class that they detest, they wouldn't have to tell us that we're already in a freaking recession. So again, I'm going to ask you the question. If and when you're told we aren't in the official room session now, what will it actually be? Could it be an economic depression? I hope not. I pray not. But I have to believe that's a possibility. According to a jobs calculator created created by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, if those projections are correct, the economy is likely to lose 1.7 million jobs over the following 12 months or so as the unemployment rate climbs above 4.2%. Right? How bad will it really be? If they're telling you it's gonna go above 4.2%, which is already ridiculously low? I think it's higher than that right now, probably considerably higher than that right now. How bad will it really be? You could probably stand to put a one in front of those numbers. 3.4% unemployment rate could be more like 13.4% climb above 4.2% might be more like 14.2% is a soft landing in which unemployment remains under 4%. Still possible, inflation may or may not play a role. According to The New York Times. The labor market is still strong, though, with 15 states seeing their lowest unemployment rates this last month since 1976, when the Labor Department began tracking the data in quote, God, right. So they're still going to give you that little bump of your hopium at the end, is a soft landing pausable we don't know we're going to be very mealy mouthed and equivocal about the global inflation may or may not play a role. How am I God? Well, how can it freaking not? Even though they want you to believe that inflation is abating, we're seeing no evidence of it, it's still way too damn high when you go to the grocery store, when you pay your utility bills. Of course, inflation is going to have something to do with it. Companies are feeling that pinch to know the labor market is not still strong. I would imagine that I could be wrong. Okay, just my opinion. And I could be wrong. But I would imagine there was a pretty tricky mathematics that went into this idea of 15 states seeing their lowest unemployment rates since 1976. I would really wonder if some of those people just aged out of unemployment, they're no longer and what I mean by that is they were drawing it for so long that they're no longer eligible, but they're still on the job market looking for a job. I think that there might be some funny math going on there. Because a Bobby Bush said voodoo economics. Yeah, I think there might be. Now the Bloomberg article that they reference on LinkedIn, even a mild US recession comes with a steep price in lost jobs. The byline reads forecasting if and when a recession will begin and how high unemployment may rise as a result is notoriously difficult. Economists still try. Oh, bang up job. I just mentioned Poppy Bush, old W your good and good old job. Yeah, yeah. Yah, yah, y'all are trying Hmm. Most Wall Street economists expect the US to fall into a recession during the coming year. What does that mean for American workers? Well, I'll answer that question. You're all ft. It's like that Gordon Gekko scene that I linked to from the second Wall Street where he goes in and he talks to a group of millennial aged college kids. And he's like, Well, you're all pretty much effed. You might not know it yet. But you are. If you have not been awake for the opening prologue and the dress rehearsal, I would highly suggest that you wake up during Act One, because by the time this recession that supposedly on the horizon gets here. Wow, he's actually using the jobs calculator developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Combined with forecasts for peak unemployment. Here's a look at how job losses could accumulate among economists who expect a downturn, the average of 15 predictions suggest that the US economy will shed some 1.7 million jobs over the next year and a half, roughly 120,000 per month. Of course, every recession is different. See, there's there see why. Because when it's worse than that, which I suspect it will be, they can say, Well, hey, man, hey, hurt. We told you every recession is different. I mean, economists just do the best that they can. I'm thinking of that scene in the 1989 Batman movie where the Joker goes to that back alley surgeon with rusted out tools and broken light bulbs and stuff. And he's like, You see what I have to work with? My tools are limited. It's the same kind of attitude. Oh, well, I mean, we just got this bad data. And I mean, we just we try the best that we can, but I mean, every recession is different. And so there's just like so much we don't know. Of course every recession is different with an impact that depends on law. Lots of things, including what caused it and how long it lasts. kind of bite my tongue. In some cases, unemployment reaches its highest point while the economy is still shrinking, and in others, the peak comes months after the downturn has officially ended. Okay, so there's a second see why unemployment could still continue to get worse. And then they'll say, Well, I mean, we did tell you, we did write this article on Bloomberg. You know, the editor in chief is at the freaking Bilderberg Group, as we speak. Yeah, we weren't you. We told you. We, I mean, we told you, like, this is a possibility. And so like, if you didn't listen, and you're out on the street without a job now, then it's pretty much like your fault. That's how they look at it. Because these hyperlinks that are fiending for the recession, they Oh, God, they can't wait to gorge themselves like fat, little ticks sucking on somebody else's blood. They feel like if they put these warnings out, even if you have to dig for the information, it's there. They feel like if they do that, then they're absolved of any potential guilt because they told you and you sat and did nothing. You played on Tik Tok. you goofed off on Instagram, and you didn't prep. That's that is how they look at it. I linked to the article last year that I got on the airwaves and recorded an emergency broadcast about it. Via CBS News, buckle up America, the Fed plans to sharply boost unemployment. Yeah. And in this article, they told you all the same things that Jerome Powell felt like unemployment would probably hit 4.4%. It was going to go up. I wish there was a painless way to do it. But there isn't. They implied that it did an additional 1.2 million people would lose their jobs. I warned you about all this. And I did. So last year. So I mean, I'm not trying to be a butthole here, but kind of I am. Because like you've had time to get this information. And if you just sat on it, and thought, well, I'll listen to the hotter and hopium crowd that told me it would only be big tech in Silicon Valley. And since that's not me, I'm probably going to be okay. I don't know what else to tell you. Another article I want to point out before I leave white collar jobs now more elusive? Yes, this matches with what I'm seeing in real time in the job market. Yes, they are. They are and hiring managers know that. God, the Battle Royales that I've had about are to versus work from home and some of the stubborn hard heads because they know it. And so it's like, well, if I want them to sit in the office, because that's what I want them to do, then they should just do that. And for me, it's like, well, a lot of people are not aware of just how bad the economy is yet. You have people that think, well, if I go to Mickey D's, and there's a ton of people in line to get food, the economy is fine. If I go to the grocery store, and the store is busy, everything's fine. If I go to put gas in the car on the way to work in the morning, and other people are doing the same thing, the economy must be fine. You You really don't know. Those people could be putting every bit of that on a credit card. They could be doing Buy now pay later. It is amazing the amount of denial that the human brain is able to conjure for us truly. Only a year ago, new hires were ghosting employers by never showing up for work. I'm gonna but in the first breaking sentence, I've got to button and say how long did you think that was going to last? Did you think that corporate America was just going to put up with that forever. Really, today faced with economic uncertainty, employers are ratcheting up job requirements and slowly walking prospective candidates through endless rounds of interviews. Yay. Set his table and Storage Wars. Now this I can vouch for it because I am seeing it in real time every day in the job market. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. While the unemployment rate is at a 54 year low, no, it's not layoffs and white collar industries are rising and postings for these jobs have fallen by 500,000. So that's by half a million since the end of last year. Think about that. In five and a half months, the posting. So let's assume even some of those being ghost jobs, fake jobs for optics. It's fallen off by half a million. Oh my god, I'm just I'm getting a word of knowledge. I don't know who it is these near this for real. But please, please pay attention to this. Please, please. There's somebody out there who was really going to be helped by this episode. I believe it I feel it spiritually. And I just I really just speak it over your life that you will be helped By this, you will make those provisions and you will be able to sit back and say I am so glad I plan to head AT and T for example, cut its office job postings by half and is receiving three times the number of applications for each one that it saw last year. Mm hmm. That's what corporate America wanted. Remember that Bank of America leaked memo that I have linked to about 50,000 times from the intercept. We want the balance of power to go back to us. I can't it cannot be any clearer. Continuing claims for unemployment benefits have gone up 40%. Since they're half century low last fall for Wall Street Journal in another sign of how much longer it's taking Americans to find new jobs. Wow. So what I want you to do is juxtapose this information about strong labor market. 15 states are seeing the lowest unemployment rates last month since 1976. But then continuing, continuing claims for unemployment benefits have gone up 40%. What statistic what information do you think is true? What what rings true for you? Maybe you are seeing something totally different than what I'm seeing. What I'm seeing matches what they're talking about in this white collar jobs are now more elusive article. I wish to God that that weren't so. But it is. In some respects, recruiting is a nightmare right now, because you have job seekers who think it's still 2021, I imagine is the same way for realtors who have hung in there because they're getting sellers who want to lark and play that it's still 2021 and put some exorbitant price tag on their house and expect buyers to show up with a bouquet of roses and a steak dinner to cater to them. But it's not. So there's a phenomenon that Scott Walters calls euphoric recall, which is like, for example, in the real estate world, where a seller says, Well, I saw that my neighbor sold his house for such and so amount of money in 2021. And my house is even better. So I should be able to get even more than he did and 2021. And the realtor is like oh my god, like it's 2023 The economy is in a completely different circumstance, the bubble for real estate has started to deflate like me to come on back down to earth. Well, the same thing is going on in the job market with candidates they're having this euphoric recall of 2021 with a great resignation was going strong. And they just don't want to accept the reality that the great resignation for white collar work is over. And it has been for quite a while. I was on the leading edge of telling you that as well, when you were still from the so called commentators and so called HR experts who, in my opinion, there is all about self aggrandizement, they're out to get likes and comments and shares to promote themselves. They're not really on the airwaves to help you. They're out to promote themselves and their own channel or or their own platform, though, it's gonna go on forever. This has really changed things and workers are not going to ever go out of the power position and all of this hot air nonsense, and I was sitting back going, Whoa, this is some bad freaking advice, in my opinion. And people would really, really do well to think about who they're listening to. and for what reason. This may be the only warning that you get and act one. By the time that somebody comes out and trumpets, we are in a recession. God help us all seriously, I really think that it's going to be a difficult economic downturn. No, for the record. I don't think we're going into Mad Max the Thunderdome. I don't believe that we'll have World War Z was always eating your brains. No, no, I don't get into any of that. And I have really cleaned up my feed. As I've reported on before getting away from any of the doomsday apocalyptic people are the folks that tell you you need to hoard awful, ultra processed foods? No, just No, I'm not into that. So I'm not telling you that it's going to be impossible to survive. What I am saying is that, in my opinion, in my estimation, by the time that you're officially told it's a recession, unemployment is high white collar workers are really getting beat up out there in the job market. It's going to be not impossible to survive but impossible to plan ahead at that point. Because if so facto planning ahead for a recession is too late when the recession has already started. And see I think it started last year when they were doing all their chicanery and shenanigans about changing the technical definition by the time that we have a full on job market crash, and we start to see what we saw during the Great Recession of Oh, eight and oh nine, by that point, it is too late. In my opinion, it is too late to think about your job loss survival plan. And it could be too late for you earlier than that. Because if you lose your job Monday morning, then what have you have you work, gamed out your strategy, or you're going to be slapped upside the face and feel foolish, scared, upset? A lot of possibilities here that are not good. I don't give you advice. I don't tell you what to do. All I can say is that I'm practicing what I'm preaching are we have more gamed out those strategies, not because we want the thing we fear to come upon us. It's not about living in a spirit of fear. It's about saying, we know what we would do if and now I will go on and continue to live my life, I will run my business. I'll record these podcast episodes and write my blogs and work for my clients. And that'll just be that. If it gets to the point where that's no longer feasible, and I need to be a desk jockey again, then I guess that's what I'll have to do. I don't want to do it. But I would rather be prepared for what that would look like if I had to do it. Because I don't want to get steamrolled by what's coming. I don't want to lose the house. I don't want to be unable to feed my family and my animals. I would rather be prepared and scared. I'd rather be able to in that moment of crisis, which I hope never comes but if it does, I want to be in that moment saying we've already been through our fire drill we prepared for this. We know how we'll handle it. Stay safe, stay sane. And I will see you in the next episode.