Saturday Broadcast 56

 Key topics:

✔️ ICYMI news, 7/10-7/14.
✔️The big banks made money off of debt and interest rate hikes? Wowee, what a surprise. 😒
✔️Inflation is still going up but supposedly it's going up less high, so, like, people'r'doin' great.
✔️The cracks in the job market are becoming too big for the MSM to ignore completely. So if you're still burying your head in the sand, IMO, you are way behind the eight ball on this. 

Links:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/10/american-banks-face-more-pain-huge-shift.html

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-earnings-recession-is-here-and-its-about-to-get-even-worse-174057805.html

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1125110/12760014

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/01/jamie-dimon-jpmorgan-first-republic.html

https://fortune.com/2023/05/01/jamie-dimon-first-republic-banking-crisis-over/

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

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/are-employers-regaining-control-5680020/

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bofa-to-pay-250-million-for-double-dipping-and-fake-accounts-161721705.html

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/harvard-study-why-a-record-number-of-americans-are-struggling-to-pay-rent-151135917.html

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/rural-businesses-face-financial-woes-5689204/

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/fed-eyes-midsize-bank-reserve-rules-6343138/

https://survivingtomorrow.org/summers-here-for-the-sake-of-human-kindness-please-don-t-use-airbnb-793cb10870a2

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/12/heres-the-inflation-breakdown-for-june-in-one-chart.html

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/more-employers-are-cutting-hours-6348794/

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/shopify-puts-price-tags-on-meetings-6344554/

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7085001205780819968/

https://fairmontpost.com/should-job-hoppers-leap-one-more-time/

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/yolo-spenders-propping-economy-says-111451321.html

https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-monetize-any-hobby-skill-or-passion-128c7a806b58

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/jobless-claims-show-market-strength-5357241/

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/wfh-crushing-office-building-prices-5351937/

https://www.weather.gov/safety/heat-illness

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/14/biden-forgives-39-billion-in-student-debt-for-some-800000-borrowers.html

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/ai-big-stay-biggest-work-trends-5346033/

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/gig-workers-pay-hike-skids-to-halt-6346106/

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/rate-hikes-boost-big-banks-5347457/

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, thanks for tuning in. Today it is Monday, July 10. When I looked at the calendar earlier, I realized that Saturday's July 15th So we will be halfway through the month of July, as well as halfway through meteorological summer at that point, not a complaint on my part whatsoever. We all know that I'm more of a fall in wintertime person. And I'm ready. This week, we're going to have some heat indices 112 113 with the humidity. Last year, we had the dry heat, and this year we're getting the humidity so that is just going to be joyful and jubilant. Over on CNBC today, we find the American banking landscape is on the cusp of a seismic shift, expect more pain to come. Oh, great. When we click on that, in the TLDR key points, we find rising interest rates, losses on commercial real estate and heightened regulatory scrutiny will pressure regional and midsize banks leading to a wave of mergers. Sources told NBC but I'm gonna button right there. Before I go any further. I told you, I've predicted that as we get into this downturn, you would see companies merging together. And sometimes it would be companies that were in good shape. And sometimes it will be companies that were not in good shape. We might see companies merging together where both of the companies are kind of like, maybe we're gonna make it maybe we're not but we're stronger together. And here we go. Some of those pressures will be visible as regional banks disclose second quarter results this month, firms including Zions and key core, already have warned of shrinking revenues, half the country's banks will likely be swallowed by competitors in the next decade. According to Fitch Analyst Chris Wolf. Oh, okay. Right. So even though we're getting this information in a mainstream media news outlet at this point, let's don't forget the neoliberals who told us it was just a conspiracy theory, the idea that all of these little regional banks would eventually go away. And we would only have conglomerates to deal with that did to compare with the theory. And then we had neocon saying you don't have to worry about your bank, your bank where little Timmy has his paper route and great grandma has her savings bonds, your bank is totally fine. And if you're worried about it, well, you're just an idiot. Right? Some of these banks will survive by being the buyer rather than the target said incoming Lazarus CEO Peter or zag. Hopefully I'm saying that right. We could see over time fewer, larger regionals, boom. I'm gonna say it again for the 18,000 time, if you wait to be officially told you are waiting too damn late. If you are not using good judgment, good critical thinking skills you're not assessing is what I'm hearing out in the media or from these commentators, especially if we're talking about overtly political commentators, right? Whether we're looking at Neo cons or Neo lips, if you're not able to assess, okay, just what they say match with objective reality isn't a match for what I'm actually seeing in real time. If you just blindly listen to them, because they're feeding you hopium in my opinion, you're probably not going to make it it's too far gone now. It just is. And I'm sorry. That's just my opinion. And I could be wrong, but in my opinion, it is too far gone. Now. It is. Let's also not forget, it's especially ironic because the picture that goes with this article on CNBC is a photo of Jamie Dimon leaning against a wall or a mirror of something. Okay. Let us not forget may 1 2023 on fortune and on Yahoo Finance. There was the headline Jamie Dimon declares the banking crisis is over. And he in fact said for now everyone can take a deep breath. Oh, Mm hmm. Let us also not forget that on Saturday broadcast 47 I warned you gonna go back and play a clip of myself doing that. Hello, hello. Thanks for tuning in. Today. It is Monday, May 1 overall on CNBC we find first republic deal comes at a crucial point for the markets and economy. FDIC sees merits of increasing backstop for business accounts. Then we also have this part of the crisis is over, says diamond after JP Morgan Chase buys First Republic. In the TLDR key points we find the crisis that led to the downfall of three regional US banks in recent weeks is largely over after the resolution of first republic. According to JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan emerged as the winner of a Wiegand auction for First Republic after regulators decided that time had run out on a private sector solution. There are only so many banks that were offsides this way, diamond told analysts in a call shortly after the deal was announced. Wow. So yet again, we see Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan Chase coming out the winter in a financial crisis situation do you think this part of the crisis is over? Do you think that indeed the banking system is sound nothing to see here people move along move along don't even give it another thought. Only you can make that decision I will say the same thing to you again today only you can make these decisions only you can evaluate for yourself what makes sense. I want to go back and read from that TLDR key point yet again just for emphasis. Half the country's banks will likely be swallowed by competitors in the next decade according to Fitch Analyst Chris Wolf. But then if you try to tell people hey, we're kind of moving toward a situation with CBD C's and these global quote too big to fail banks were five or six humongous banks will control everybody's banking and that will be that dead good to go bear victory. I don't believe that. Yeah, some of y'all not gonna make it you're just not you're just not also on CNBC. Today we find home prices are hitting new highs again as high rates put the squeeze on supply. Great. Over on Yahoo Finance, we find the earnings recession is here and it's about to get even worse. In the byline companies are expected to see earnings declined for the third straight quarter but that might not be a bad thing for stocks according to Wall Street strategist. Okay. I guess this is the bad news is good news spin. In this we read. Second quarter earnings season begins in earnest this week and the forecast is rather bleak. Expectations are for earnings to decline for third straight quarter consensus estimates project a decline of about 7% and earnings per share among s&p 500 companies compared to the same quarter last year, which would mark the steepest decline since 2020. Per UBS. Across the sector's consumer discretionary and communication services are the only two of the 11 sectors expected to see second quarter earnings growth materially higher. Meanwhile, s&p 500 companies are also expected to see know year over year revenue growth for the first time in 10 quarters per Goldman Sachs and quote, but people are doing great, nothing to see here. People move along, move along job market is doing great. consumers feel confident. You don't have anything to worry about. Sure. Which is again, why I will tell you in my opinion. If we ever do actually get a talking head, someone in the mainstream media, someone in politics, whomever trotting out saying the recession has now officially started. How bad will it really be? Seriously? Earlier today, I published a blog post just simply titled Yes. Because I mean, sometimes it's like well, what else do you really need to say? Yes, and I'll read from that blog posts where you now yesterday LinkedIn finally asked the question are employers regaining control? And I'll read from that LinkedIn article now. The great resignation has yielded to workers staying in their jobs at rates near pre pandemic levels. The New York Times reports that shift is changing job market perceptions and brewing a new question have employers regain power? wage growth has stalled and some benefits of job switching have dwindled. You don't see the sign saying $1,000 signing bonus anymore below Richardson ADPs chief economist told The Times experts predict lower earner wage gains to hold and what remains a tight job market. Oh still. Otherwise it's back to business as usual and quote. And as I wrote, well, I mean better late than never I guess she shrugging emoji, quite frankly, in my opinion by the time and mainstream media outlet is even asking a question like this A, you already know the damn answer and be it's too late to prepare.

I talked about the great resignation being done back on June 15 of 2022. Okay, not June 15 of this year, June 15, of 2022. And if we go back to the very first Saturday broadcast that I did, titled special Saturday broadcast, a storm is coming. That was published on June 4. And I warned you, we cannot bury our heads in the sand we cannot play pretend that a bull market or the great resignation is going to last forever. I really think the tide is turning. By June 15 of that same year, I told you Hey, in my humble opinion, the great resignation is done. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But it's toast now. Think about people who are only just now, only just now at a point where they're like, ah, is it possible that employers have the upper hand again? Great resignation done? Are the workers and the job seekers at a disadvantage now? Or what? Can you imagine? I hope that you've been with me for all this time, and that nothing happening right now is a surprise to you. If it is, in my opinion, which could be wrong, like Dennis Miller has always said it is just my opinion. And I could be wrong. But in my opinion, I think you're so far behind the eight ball, I am not sure how you're going to prepare adequately. I don't. If your game plan was to Hippity, hop across the job market and make more money with each week, because you thought the great resignation was either going to last forever or for a very long time. I don't know what you're going to do. If you get laid off, and you don't have a job loss survival plan, I don't know what you're gonna do. Seriously, I don't if you have been working remotely. And you were under the notion, let's say that your employer would never rent office space, or they would never call you back to corporate, and you get an RTO notification. And you don't have an RTO survival plan in place already. You're going to try to cobble one together like making a parachute after you jump off the Grand Canyon. I don't I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what you're gonna do. I understand that. We're always supposed to end on a high note. journalistically and content creation wise, it's bad for him to be a Debbie Downer. You have to try to give somebody something positive. I don't know what to say here. Sincerely, I don't I know the cliche. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is today. And I understand that I would never tell anybody, don't at least try to make some provisions. Frankly, I don't tell you what to do. Period. I don't give you advice. I sit here and I opine for your entertainment only. You have to make your own decisions. Everyone's situation is different. If it were me, I would want to do whatever I could to get my head out of my behind. And I would quit listening to the hot air and the hopium crowd. Just trying to fill fill me up with little nuggets of hope. Fill me up with nonsense. Oh, everything's fine. There's gonna be a Hail Mary pass the government, corporate America Wall Street, somebody somewhere is going to figure out how to solve the crisis and it won't be so bad. I wouldn't bet my money on that. No freaking way. To me, the market feels very weird right now. It's in some sort of weird. I don't think holding pattern is exactly the right term. It's all that's coming to my mind. But it's like you still have homeowners home sellers. LARPing then it's 2021. And I'm sure that some realtors are trying their best to bring them into reality. And some of them probably or not. But you still have home sellers that are listing due to poop properties for way too much money. And I find it very hard to believe that some of the people who got approved and 2020 and 2021 during the FOMO and the Yolo will not somehow just magically they will not be impacted by layoffs. And they'll be able to make the payment on a grossly overpriced home. i To me the odds of that just seem low. I feel like we have not yet gone into as bad as the downturn is going to get I feel like we're still in Act One. What will act two and act three and then the Danian wall look like? I have no idea. I've speculated before this could be like What if the 1982 recession had a baby with the Great Recession slash global financial crisis, we could see something like that, I hope and I pray that we don't. My point is, again, if it were me, I wouldn't want to just sit back and rely on thoughts and prayers and hopes. At some point, you've got to put some elbow grease into it, you've got to use some critical thinking and some common sense. And my god, I mean, these people that want to just, they get so bought into comfortable ideology, because to me, that's what it boils down to. It's like, I want people to tell me what I want to hear. And so that might be, I want to believe that the state is pure and holy, and will solve all of my problems. So whenever I hear something I don't like, I will just simply saying that's a conspiracy theory, or on the neocon side of things, it might be I want to believe that corporate America and Wall Street will somehow look out for the little guy. So if I hear something that I disagree with, and that I don't think gives me the warm and fuzzies I'll say that's just a conspiracy theory. And then in three to six months, when it comes out in the mainstream media as in fact, not being a conspiracy theory, I will ignore the fact that I had my head at my backside, and I'm ganging up with the theory, when I heard about it the first time around, and I could have done something to prepare myself. I mean, I don't know if we're living in Idiocracy, or what, but man, it feels like it sometimes it does. I heard a commentator the other day, if I can remember where I heard this person, I'll try to link to it. But somebody was making the point that maybe humanity has started to devolve. People are not reading, they don't want to think for themselves. They don't want to go through any kind of like, logic. I mean, I'm old enough to remember in school when you were given logic problems. If This Then That. If Bob is here, and this criteria is present, what does it mean? I remember those things. I bet kids don't have to do that anymore in school. It seems to be all about obedience and compliance. Are you going to believe whatever narrative is put out and not question it? Today, it is Tuesday, July 11. Over on Yahoo Finance, we find Microsoft Activision deal clears huge hurdle import. Stocks edged higher as inflation data looms, Bank of America to pay $250 million for double dipping and fake accounts or in that we read Bank of America is paying $250 million. After regulators concluded the giant lender double dipped on overdraft fees and open accounts for customers without their consent. harmed consumers will get $100 million and another $150 million will go to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the comptroller of the currency. The nation's largest bank Once charged consumers a $35 Feed when they authorize a transaction from their accounts that lacks sufficient funds. They see FP be saying that four times past said Bank of America double dipped by charging consumers a fee each time those transactions were re attempted by merchants for multiple years starting in September 2018. It made hundreds of millions of dollars in such feats. The OCC also called out Bank of America for the same double dipping practice, consumers could not reasonably understand that they could be assessed a new $35 fee each time the CFP be said in this order. Even when consumers did understand they were charged for each new transaction, they still could not reasonably avoid them or otherwise protect their interest the regulator set beginning in January of last year Bank of America said it eliminated all non sufficient fund fees. As a result of these leading industry leading changes revenue from these fees is dropped more than 90% of Bank of America spokesman said the CFPB said the bank also withheld credit card rewards and opened accounts for customers without their consent since 2012. In quote, good grief.

Wow. Such are the times in which we live I guess. We also find Harvard study why a record number of Americans are struggling to pay rent. Is it really that much of a surprise. In this we read a record number of American renters are spending at least 1/3 of their income on rent according to the state of the nation's housing 2023 published by Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, a total of 21 point 6 million households now spend more than 30% of pre tax income on rent. Some households are even paying up to 50% of earnings on apartments per Harvard's research Which housing experts often suggest tenants spend less than 30% of their income on rent and, quote, the economy stupid. I find it hard to believe that there are people that are still at that 30% pre tax income level. I think probably a lot of people more than we would care to admit aren't 40 or 50%, maybe even more having to go to cover their rent. On the side panel for LinkedIn, we find rural businesses face financial works. Small business owners looking to invest in their rural communities by building new stores or facilities are running into financial problems. A confluence of factors is resulting in the cost of constructing new businesses far outpacing the appraisals for these buildings upon completion. According to The Wall Street Journal, high construction costs are just part of the problem with the biggest hurdle being the lack of economic development in these areas, which often results in low valuations for comparable properties. In regions that have access to in demand outdoor attractions locals have been priced out of the market and quote, this makes me think of an article that Jared a Brock recently published titled summers here for the sake of human kindness, please don't use Airbnb. And the subtitle is refuse to let your family holiday create homelessness for the poor and rising costs for everyone else. And one of the things that he covers in this article is Airbnb crushes renters all read. In addition to stripping housing supply from local communities and commodifying residential real estate which causes house sale prices to rise, house rental prices for working families have skyrocketed. That is when rentals don't disappear entirely. Because a landlord can always make more money via Airbnb than from a monthly renter rents are crushingly competitive and shelter costs are insane in nearly every city. In Australia 35% of Airbnb E's aren't even owned by the listed host. They're simply subletting them to vacationers in a perverse game of real estate arbitrage and quote, he also talks about Airbnb destroying communities. And he tells the story that I will relay for you now. One of our village friends, a former police officer lost her longtime resident neighbor to a full time Airbnb investor. Soon the house was crawling with partiers who parked on her lawn and blocked her driveway. After complaining dozens of times the landlord came for a visit and spoke His truth bluntly. At the end of the day, I live 200 miles away and I just don't give up. If in quote, yeah, I feel like these stories are not unrelated. If you make it harder for people to start their own businesses to start their own stores. You make it more difficult for people even to rent on their own, you make it more difficult for people to buy housing on their own. We get that much closer to Youville on nursing and TV be happy. Oh, I know good good to conspire to bury, even though that's a real quote, good Burberry. Like I've said before, many times, some of y'all out there not gonna make it. Also on LinkedIn, we find fit eyes mid sized bank reserve rules. It may be that even midsize banks are too big to fail. Michael Barr vice chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve announced that he is working on a proposal to increase capital requirements for banks with assets of 100 to 700 billion. It's a category that includes about 30 US banks and would have encompass Silicon Valley Bank, first republic bank and Signature Bank. At the time each lender collapsed earlier this year events that according to Barr showed that even banks of this size can cause stress that spreads to other institutions and threatens financial stability. Critics say consumers would bear the cost of higher capital reserves in the form of increased borrowing fees and decreased lending. As regulatory pressures, rising interest rates and commercial real estate losses squeeze midsize lenders, a wave of mergers could claim half of the country's banks over the next 10 years. One adult analyst tells CNBC and quote, but compared with Bert, your your bank is fine, where Timmy has his paper route money and great grandma has her $50 CD, it's all fine. Everything's fine. Nothing to see here. People move along, move along. Right, of course. Sure. Before I sign off for this portion of the broadcast, I want to make a comment. You know, I've been talking about the shenanigans and the chicanery going on in the job market. I was on the leading edge of telling you that the great resignation for white collar work was done and has been for quite some time. Even though it appears that some mainstream media news outlets are only just now catching up to that reality. I was on the leading edge of telling you, I really was and I also told you this was going to be the year of raw authenticity, raw honesty. Some of the shenanigans and foolishness going on in the job market these days. It's just wow. In my opinion, employers know they have the upper hand again and they want to behave accordingly. Instead of looking for a balance of power are really trying to treat people in a way. That's fair, that's decent. Some of these people are just a holes. They are and there was a red flag that came up for me and I wanted to talk about it. I don't give you advice, I don't tell you what to do or what not to do. I sit here and I opine for your entertainment only. If you and I were just at the pub having a pint, I might say, you know, I think that it's a smart idea. If you're looking for a job, or if you're putting bids in on projects, maybe you're an independent contractor. So it's not a job, per se, but you're going to be freelancing for someone, I think it's a really wise idea that you need to vet those people 10 times harder than they're vetting you. I know that might seem easier said than done, especially when we're hearing reports of people going through eight or nine interviews. It's crazy out there, I get that. And maybe you need a j ob ASAP. You're not looking for a place to call home, you're looking to get a few paychecks under your belt to keep from starving. I get it. I really do. But in those situations where you are looking for a home, maybe you're gainfully employed right now, but someone is trying to move you away, whatever the situation may be, if it's not, what the crisis demands, you're not in an emergency situation. If it were me, I would just say, you know, I think it's a wise idea for me to pay attention and to vet these people out because I don't want to step on a landmine. One stunt that sometimes people will pull is they will schedule a phone meeting. And then at the last minute, change it to a zoom or teams, some type of video platform. Why you may ask? Well, I'm glad you asked. rhetorically, if nothing else, sometimes it's because they want to put their eyeballs on you, which is code for we want to see what you look like. Do you conform? Do you comply? Are you dressed nicely? What's going on in the background? How do you look? Can we get a sense of your age, your gender, your race by how you look on camera? I've spoken out against this many times I am trained on best practices for D IB. And I just do not put up with that discriminatory bullshit. I feel that these video calls can really impact people, because they're getting judged on physical appearance. And I don't think that's right. Especially if you're talking about a first meeting. I don't know you. We have never spoken before. Money is not changing hands. We're just having a preliminary conversation, why the hell do you need to see how I live? Why do you need to see what I look like? I don't like that stuff. I do not like it at all. The other thing is, it's not being respectful of your time. It's tailgate negotiating, it's running over the top of you. It's saying we scheduled this as a telephone call. And so you prepared for a telephone call. But now kind of like Screw you. We don't care about you. We want to do what we want to do. And it may be the eyeball excuse. It may be their highly extroverted it may be they want to record the interaction, whether you consent to it or not. There are a lot of different possibilities there that could be going on. Not saying that's always what comes into play. I'm just giving you theoretically and I'm opining for your entertainment only. For me, that stuff pisses me off. And it's a huge red flag. If we have a telephone call scheduled and somebody tries to railroad me into getting on camera at the last minute, I already have a sour taste in my mouth. What you're telling me is you're not going to respect the rules of engagement. You don't respect your word to you Your word is not your bond, because we pre agreed on something. And now you're changing the rules of engagement. You're also telling me you don't value me you don't value any candidate or any potential contractor, any potential Freelancer because that's how you're choosing to behave. Whatever we agreed to previously. No, that's not relevant. It's all about what I want to do in this moment. And are you going to go along to get along? Or are you going to be a problem Powell? These are things that I think you have to think about.

Today it is Wednesday, July 12. Over on CNBC, we find here's the inflation breakdown for June in one chart. In the TLDR key points we read. The Consumer Price Index was up 3% In June from 12 months earlier, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday in its monthly inflation report. It's the smallest increase since March 2021. Around the time when pandemic era inflation began rising quickly. The moderation and inflation has been broad based and there are encouraging signs looking ahead economists said the Federal Reserve is still expected to raise interest rates at least one more time. Yeah. Okay. smallest increase since March 2021. It's still going up but you're supposed to think that if it's a small increase Well, that's a good sign. Color Me not convinced. We also read as Twitter continues to implode, advertisers pin their hopes on threads. And Elon Musk launches his new company X A I. All right. Over on Yahoo Finance, we find cooling inflation has economist debating Feds path in the byline. With a near consensus on July's meeting. Economists are now debating the second Fed rate hike will be necessary given the slowdown seen and inflation during June to be determined, I guess I thought they were pretty firm that they were going to do two more rate hikes this year. Maybe they're in a hurry to get back to QE and the age of easy money. I don't know. There are several possibilities here at play. And I know this will sound pessimistic, but I think in the short run they're not good possibilities. On a definitely not unrelated note, we also see stocks pop as inflation continues cooldown. Don't you think it's interesting? I mean, I'm sure it's completely coincidental. But don't you think it's interesting that whenever we get certain reports, it causes the stock market to go up? Huh? Huh. Very interesting. We also find back to school spending set for first drop in nine years. Well, people are having to make do with what they've got for one thing. It's tough out there. And on that note, on the side panel for LinkedIn, we find more employers are cutting hours. In this. The number of part time workers in the US is growing, which may be a sign that the economy is slowing down, maybe a sign maybe a sign that the economy is slowing down, says the Washington Post. Those holding down part time jobs despite wanting to work full time grew by about 452,000 In June, the biggest increase in more than three years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. While economists are generally loath to base predictions on one data point, the jump in part time work coincides with a cooldown in hiring in the same month, leading some experts to conclude that the job market and the economy are softening. The majority of workers who spoke with the Washington Post said their hours were shortened due to a slowdown in business service sector workers were most likely to have their hours cut in quote, This is not a good time, I plan to talk more about this as well as the article from The Washington Post. And the other one they mentioned here that's from Bloomberg about this slowdown and fleurs cutting hours and people working part time when they'd rather be working full time. I plan to talk more about that on Friday in a post on the job market journal. But this is not a good sign. It's it's not there's no positive spin that I think any sane person can put on that. And my theory is which could be wrong. My theory is that they're telling you this because the cracks in the foundation are getting too obvious to do simply ignore or paper over. And you're also being given this warning so that nobody can say, Well, I mean, it's not like you know, you shouldn't really be surprised that unemployment is going up. You shouldn't really be surprised that part time employment is the force majeure, because businesses don't have the money for full time hours. I mean, we did tell you, wink wink. Just my opinion, and it could be wrong, as Dennis Miller has always said, but in my opinion, it's too late now to do anything to meaningfully prepare. I hope that you have been listening to the Saturday broadcast from the beginning. I hope that you have been thoughtful and strategic about what needs to happen for yourself and your family in a severe economic downturn in a job market crash in a time of high unemployment. If we have God forbid another great recession slash global financial crisis 2.0. I hope that you have already done those things. Because in my opinion, if you have not, it's too late now. You're behind the eight ball. And if you're just now trying to get a plan together, so are a lot of other people. Now, you might be two steps ahead of somebody who just simply waits until there's an official proclamation of a recession. I don't know. But you're way behind people who have been thinking about this for over a year. And that hurt someone's feelings. I'm sorry. All I can do is give you my opinion. Also on the side panel for LinkedIn, we find Shopify puts price tags on meetings. After limiting time spent in meetings earlier this year Shopify is taking its war against meetings to a new level with a cost calculator. The internal tool uses compensation data meeting length and attendee count to calculate the price of meetings which can run as high as $1,600 for a 30 minute call clip for them. Chief Operating Officer Kaz measure Tiaan hope I'm saying that right said calculator is meant to remind workers of the value of their time and boost productivity, though some experts told Bloomberg it's more of a superficial intervention and quote, be it whatever it may be. I think this is great. Here's the cost of this meeting. Do you still really need to have it? Do you really need to have that Zoom meeting? Do you really need to have that touch base? Do you really need to have that check in? Somebody that is highly extroverted people that waste a lot of time are going to have to get real? Seriously.

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 Thursday, July 13. Earlier today, a little blurb popped up on my LinkedIn feed, titled Should I Stay or Should I Go? And I laughed out loud because I thought if somebody is only just now contemplating that, just like in my mind if they're only just now thinking about whether or not the great resignation is over with for white collar workers. In my opinion, you're way behind the eight ball. I was having that conversation last year. I'll drop a link I had an interview with The Fairmont post may 11 of last year, May 11 2022. Titled should job hoppers leap one more time. I said it before I know some people feel like it's braggadocious it's tooting your own horn. But I can only tell you what I've already told you. I scooped this information long before you started hearing about it in mainstream media news sources. In this article from LinkedIn news, we find just a few questions that may be on your mind as we approach the halfway point of 2023. And with six months remaining, it's only fair to wonder overall, what will the remainder of the year be like workforce wise, the latest data from LinkedIn reveals a few must watch trends. For one it looks like we've entered the dawn of the big stay. Job transitions in May 2023. As tracked by LinkedIn members activity were down 34.3% From a year earlier. Hiring slowdowns in pivotal sectors like tech have reduced pivots with professionals in general appearing to value job security over flexibility and quote. Told you so I'll scroll down a little bit. Finally, Remote Jobs keep getting scarcer. While demand remains high. Back in May 2020 to 18.4% of us pay job listings on LinkedIn offered remote work. That percentage has been in decline ever since only 10.4% of us paid job postings offered remote work this past May, and there's no signs of lead up. Even so job candidates are still eager to land a remote position. Paid Remote Jobs attracted 47.1% of all applications on LinkedIn this past May in quote, told you that too. As the hot air and hopium crowd still persisted on social media with the great resignation is gonna go on forever. Workers still have the upper hand, it's a great time to be job hopping or job hunting bah, bah bah. I was here telling you the truth as I saw it. I'm not trying to be braggadocious about that. That's not my intent. Really what my intent is, is that I hope that you're awake. And I really I hope and I pray that you have been for a while now, I hope that none of this is taking you by surprise. Because as I've also said recently, and I understand, I'm gonna get hate mail for saying this. It's only my opinion, and I could be wrong. But in my opinion, if you were just now waking up to this reality, it's too late. It is too late to meaningfully prepare, in my opinion, because I think we're already in the poop storm. I think we're in Act One. I don't know what act two and act three will look like. I suspicion as I've said before, probably something like what is the 1982 recession had a baby with the 2008 Great Recession? I think that times could get really tight and really rough. I know what I see, I know what conversations I have with job candidates on a daily freaking basis. And no people are not out there feeling super confident. It's not like it was when the great resignation actually was going strong. And somebody might be on the job market for less than 24 hours and have multiple offers on hand. I'm just not seeing that. There's more of a despondence in people's voice. I've applied applied, I've applied I can't even get a call back. Or I managed to get one interview and it didn't go well or I managed to get an interview and they strung me along and I'm having to do Just wait and wait to even find out who's going to be hired. That's the kind of reality that I'm hearing about day in and day out. Also, as someone who freelances, professionally, I'm not seeing a plethora of remote opportunities out there know, the way that remote jobs were posted during the pandemic, when stay at home orders were the law of the land. And you could literally get in trouble if you left your house without a good reason or a sanctioned reason. It's not like that now. And I have also warned people that what is available is going to have stiff competition because you're going to have individuals who have refused to put together an RTO survival plan. Like my friend I've told you about. A bunch of people and his wife's workplace have been called back but in his mind, he thinks that his wife's position will always be remote and I'm sitting here going, what, if you don't hold it, you don't own it. And hopefully the two of you have made an RTO survival plan because they could call her aspect to an offense. And this is reality. It's this is really not your wake up call. I'm trying to be facetious here because you either laugh or you cry. So sometimes we have to put humor in these situations but it's past the time to wake up it is it really is. Over on Yahoo Finance by way of fortune, we find yo lo spinners are propping up the economy, says Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel, but they're about to run out of cash. Maybe that's where I would land on a statement like that. Maybe because I'm thinking about things that I see online, anecdotally about people who have decided they're still going to have the summer vacation. We can't let the kids down. We told them that we take them somewhere they're going to be disappointed. We want to make those memories so we feel like we have to yuppies that want to keep up with the Joneses and so on. Then I'm also thinking about other people I know who are more like myself in my family where it's like No, hell no, we're not going to go flying off somewhere for one thing up feel free to make fun of me feel free to laugh I get it doctor to compare, but very okay, that's fine. I'm so dumb. I think the moon is made up cheese.

feels free to make fun of me. But like after what we went through with the and the lock downs, and then the turmoil, the Sturm on drunk that seems to be happening, gestures broadly around the world, whether we're talking about Rusia. And Karina, when we're talking about China and Taiwan, I would not want to go far away from home right now. I just wouldn't, I wouldn't want to get on an airplane and go to a foreign country and then hope that everything stayed home, and I could get back home again. For me, it just No, no, if I won the lottery, I still wouldn't even want to go do that. I just don't feel that that would be something that would feel safe to me right now. There's just too much turmoil, in my opinion for me to want to go off and do that. But the other thing is like, I don't want to be the grasshopper that saying Oh, summer. I was reading an article earlier today. And I wasn't planning to talk about this on the air, but I feel like I should. So earlier I found this article by Isaiah McCall on medium titled how to monetize any hobby skill or passion. The byline reads my five hacks to make it happen. Now, there are a plethora of articles of this flavor by various authors on medium as well as probably any publishing platform you can imagine. Many people claim to have their own special sauce, here's how I did it, maybe you can duplicate my results. So I have the tendency anytime that I see something like this, regardless of the author, I immediately arch my eyebrow and think skeptically because it's like, well, this person's gonna try to sell me something is this well, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. And you can do it too. Like what what am I about to actually encounter in this article, but there was one particular part of it that stood out to me, and it's under the heading discipline. He writes long term success requires you to endure discomfort. In my experience. Being able to tolerate a great deal of physical discomfort will make it easier to tolerate a great deal of mental discomfort. A high tolerance for suffering will enable you to outwork your colleagues and keep going despite challenges in quote. There's truth there. I know. I get it, believe me, hustle culture is out. Selling your soul to accompany is out people don't want to live to work, or to swear fealty to the company, especially because it's not a two way street. We all know that corporate America is going to look out for itself. It's not going to look out for you and me. Many states have at will employment where you can be fired for no reason or any reason at all. And somebody just doesn't like the way you look that day, they can shove you out the door, or they can put you on a pip and they can start coming up with reasons why they want to shove you out the door so that you leave on your own without them having to fire you, et cetera. But I really do think all of that being said, all of that being acknowledged, I think he has a point, long term success requires you to endure discomfort, it damn sure does. Yes, it does. This is something that's been on my mind a lot recently, I even recorded that episode about finding the middle path and an economic downturn. How do we walk that balance so that we're not coming to work in the morning or to the home office, wherever we're not sitting down in the morning going, Oh, God, what fresh hell? What lunacy What nonsense. What drama will be follow me today. Because I think when you go in with that frame of mind, especially when you start out the day, like you haven't even really gotten warmed up yet you barely sat down with your cup of coffee at your desk, and already you're in that hellscape you're really setting the tone for exactly how your day is going to go, like you've pre decided in advance that the day is going to be shitty, and so it probably will be. Then on the other side of the spectrum, we have Pollyanna sunshine, and Suzy cream cheese, it's like no, this, everything is great, everything's fine. I feel like I have to do toxic gratitude and just be thankful for everything, no matter how awful it is. There has to be a middle ground between those two things. And naturally, as I as I've been rediscovering things like wu wei, and letting go of attachments, not having a lust for result, doing that doing the actions, doing things that I feel good about, that I know ultimately lead to success without being hung up and attached to the results. Much easier said than done. But I saw this article, and I'm like, yeah, it does require discipline, and it does require discomfort, there's going to be times when you have to take on projects that get you out of your comfort zone, you may have to deal with a client who pushes you out of your comfort zone. I've had some clients before that. I'm not sure what planet they came from I the communication styles, the expectations, were so different. And sometimes it's just flat out not a match. Sometimes it's just not and there's no amount of bridging the gap that you're going to be able to do to make it a match. Not all businesses good business. However, as Isaiah is pointing out, you know, there's gonna be times where you have to endure some discomfort, you may have to hold your nose while you work with a client whose personality you find really obnoxious. But you need that money. This is a reality of the business world. If you want me to sit here and tell you that you can close your eyes and plug your ears and chant some magical phrase and you'll have a million dollars sitting on your desk as soon as you're done with the chant. I know. Not that I've ever found anyway. So returning to Jeremy Siegel's point, are there YOLO spenders who are propping up the economy, maybe so maybe so is that everybody? No, not only No, but hell no, there are some of us out there who have said no, it's time to cut back on the fund budget or eliminate the fund budget altogether. No, we're not having a vacation. I mean, I don't travel Anyway, now that I formed. So I don't really feel like there's any big loss there. I've been around I've done my traveling, not to say that I would never travel again. But right now it's just not the time. It's not the time I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything great right now. You have people that are being financially conservative. You have people for whom Dollar Tree Dollar General and Walmart has gotten to be too expensive. So it's like, are these yellow spenders propping up the economy? Maybe in this we read when the warm weather vanishes at the end of the summer season, it could take the economy's unexpected buoyancy with it. I'm going to stop right there. In my mind, in my opinion, this is a warning to you. Oh, you better expect a fall and a winter of discontent. I told you that 2023 would be the year of raw honesty, raw authenticity and in that spirit, that's exactly what I'm planning for. I love the following winter months. The Dark Half is my favorite time of the year. I know maybe for some people that's abnormal. Everybody's supposed to be rah rah about sunshine and summertime. But now on a farm It's so hot. There are bugs. There's snakes. It's just it's a lot of work. I'm I'm excited for the fall and the winter of this year. With that being said, I do think it's gonna be a fall in a winter of discontent. I know that sounds Debbie downer but that that's what I'm trying my best to plan for getting things ready, because it may be quite difficult to find work q4 q1 of next year, I don't know precisely what the economy is going to do. I don't control the fed the power brokers don't come out here and ask me for my opinion. So I don't know for sure what's going to happen. But my gut instinct tells me that it when it slows down again, it's it's going to be painfully slow. My experience was q1 of this year was slow. January in particular was a beast. It was like pulling teeth to get much of anything to happen. And I'm just suspicious that probably November, December, January, and maybe February. Upcoming will look like that as well. I hope I'm wrong. I worry that I'm not. According to Wharton, Professor Jeremy Siegel, the US economy appears to be progressing smoothly, with a resilient consumer impervious to the impact of higher borrowing costs straightaway. I disagree with that. These vendors are the Yolo You Only Live Once consumers who Siegel believes are spending the last of their cash reserves on traveling and enjoying the summer in quote. As I said at the beginning, maybe so are there people who they feel like they're entitled to a vacation? They feel like they need to get on an airplane and go someplace fancy every single summer. Yeah, you probably know some of them in your life too.

I have no doubt that there are people like that throwing vacations on a credit card or burning through what little they haven't savings. But I would say more than likely, they're putting it on a credit card and hoping that they can pay it back later. Because I don't believe this Mitch McConnell turtle type narrative that all these people were flushed with cash from the 2020 STEMI checks, and they somehow miraculously made that pittance of money last, even through the face of inflation for like two to three years. I don't I don't lie. I don't believe that there are all of these young to middle aged men that are living in grandma's basement smoking dope, or they're couchsurfing or they're living with a girlfriend she's working but doesn't require him to work, etcetera. I don't I just don't believe that stuff. Wholesale. I, you can choose to if you want to, but I don't believe it. And I'm not convinced that there are these wads and wads of YOLO consumers who are out there propping the economy up. Are there some of them? Surely, it's just not everybody in my opinion. On fortune.com, we find Elon Musk once said with artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. Now he's starting an AI company. I just think it's really funny. The people especially like the right wingers that got so excited about him. Whenever he bought Twitter, he's going to be a proponent of free speech. He's going to run it differently. And it's like, I just Yeah, I don't I don't trust him as far as I could throw it. JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon isn't sold on Biden omics. Here's what he do differently with diamond omics, though go up. I feel like they're really trying to get us prepared for the possibility of him being in the government, which is like, why do they even have to bother? So many of these people from Wall Street and these central banks wind up in politics and vice versa. It's a very incestuous community. We also find AI could kill your business overnight, just as the CEO of Chegg. This makes me think of a man splinter. I think it might have been on medium. I'm not sure the guy was trying to tell me that he didn't think that AI was an existential threat. And I'm like, I don't know what planet you're living in. I don't I don't know where you're at with that. That must be some serious hopium because I think at any point, these companies can and will try to outsource as much as they can to AI. I hope I'm wrong. But I mean, look, you have to consider the preponderance of evidence here. On LinkedIn, we find jobless claims show market strength. What that is the actual headline jobless claims show market strength in an indication that slower payrolls growth isn't translating into higher layoffs. New jobless claims fell by 12,000 last week. The Labor Department's report on applications for unemployment benefits follows its jobs report for June last week, which showed a decrease in the number of new payrolls from 209,000. To no wait a min excuse me to 209,000 from 306,000 In May, so almost 100,000 Difference their initial claims seen as a proxy for layoffs totaled 237,000. In the week ended July 8, while continuing claims rose to 1.7 3 million during the prior week. New claims are made at historically low levels. Okay. prices charged by producers rose and annual point 1% In June, the slowest pace since 2020. And the latest evidence showing inflation may allow the Federal Reserve to soon stop raising interest rates and quote, oh my God. Wow. So there's there's a lot there. If you haven't watched that PBS Frontline documentary age of easy money, I highly recommend that you do so. I even recorded an entire podcast episode about it. I think it's tremendously enlightening. If they go back to quantitative easing and handing out easy money. Wow. I don't I don't know what will happen. I don't know what will happen. I don't, I don't feel like it's any great victory to say prices are still going up. But they're going up at a slower pace, ergo, people are doing great. I also don't think that jobless claims are showing market strength either. Some of these people who just simply say screw it, I can't find a job. And so I'm giving up, they're no longer counted as being unemployed. It's like these, these numbers can be manipulated to reflect whatever in the hell the power brokers want them to say. We also find work from home crushing office building prices. The shift to remote work threatens to take an $800 billion bite out of global office values by 2030. According to McKinsey Global Institute, I'm going to butt in and say do you think that the power brokers are going to allow that to happen? Really, because see, some people out there still smoking hope you and you will still find people particularly on LinkedIn who will tell you companies that want to stay competitive companies that really care about their talent will offer remote work. And if they don't, they will go out of business. And it's like, are you nuts? Are you not? What? What alternate dimension are you living in that you really think that? Well, the dimension they're living in is I only want to acknowledge what I feel good about. I only want to listen to that, which makes me feel happy. Okay, like Isaiah said, You're gonna have to be able to endure some discomfort. If you can't even get it through your head, that highway don't care, you're gonna have some real problems. The estimate is based on a 26% drop in property values compared to 2019 as vacancy rates rise, but the consulting giant says the fall could be as high as 42%. Their trajectory of interest rates are expected to determine the depths of the declines. McKinsey suggests buildings that serve multiple uses could help developers adapt to a new reality. office rents have already dropped 28% in San Francisco and 18% in New York, while European cities such as Paris and London have held relatively steady and quote, do we really think I mean, really, when you do a gut check? Do you really think that corporate America is going to allow an $800 billion fight to be taken out of global office values? I'm inclined to say probably not. We also find on the side panel for LinkedIn heatwave hits wide swath of the US boy Don't I know that I have linked to this type of information before I will do so again, because it's not a joke, and it is not a damn game. Please understand proper safety in hot temperatures. Please, please, as someone who has been through heatstroke and somebody who has a post heart arrhythmia is not a joke. It is not a game. It is not. It is not. And it can hit you way faster than you think. There's an article from weather.gov about heat cramps, exhaustion and heat stroke, what the symptoms are and what kind of medical attention you should seek out. Don't Don't play games here. If you're in one of these areas. Please take appropriate precautions. I know that they're talking about rolling blackouts again possible power outages. Do you have some Plan B's and C's in place of what you would do to make it through that are experienced after that tornado went through and took out the power? Not down lines not now trees debris was everywhere. It really opened up our eyes to the necessity of having those game plans in place. Do it before you need it because by the time you need it, it's too late to meaningfully prepare. Today it is Friday, July 14 overall and see NBC we find JP Morgan Chase beats analysts estimates on higher rates better than expected bond trading. It seems like Jamie Dimon is just sort of everywhere. These days, I had a news alert pop up on my phone, just more yatta yatta about him having a position against remote work. And I'm like, he's been that way almost since the beginning. But I find it interesting because just the other day, we saw the article about Biden omics versus diamond omics. And maybe there'll be a spot for Jamie Dimon at some point in the White House or somewhere else in the government. And I'm like, This, to me, it's just my opinion, it could be wrong, but it feels like prep work, laying the groundwork, almost like we're gonna put some feelers out and see how people react to that general idea. But I have also told you many times that we live in crony capitalism, and all of these little piggies eat from the same trough. So let's think about this. If someone who was anti remote work, and had been pretty clear in saying so if that person got into the White House or gotten into a very high office within the government, what do you think would happen? Are you still LARPing that there's going to be this big nationwide revolt against Artio. And that corporate America is just going to take one humongous loss on corporate real estate, or Have you woken up yet.

We also find Biden administration forgives $39 billion in student debt for more than 800,000 borrowers. I guess maybe that's a silver lining. I had also said if you were planning on student loan forgiveness, and it didn't happen, how are you planning to deal with that? In the TLDR key points for this, we find the Biden administration announced it would automatically cancel education debt for 804,000 borrowers, for a total of $39 billion in relief. The debt cancellation is a result of the administration's fixes to repayment plans, which included updated counts of borrowers payments. In this we also read in the past payments that should have moved a borrower closer to being debt free were not accounted for, according to the Biden administration. For far too long, borrowers fell through the cracks of a broken system that failed to keep accurate track of their progress towards forgiveness. US Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona said in a statement to bring many people over the line for forgiveness, the Biden administration counted payments for borrowers who'd pause their payments in certain deferments and forbearances and those who'd made partial or late payments. Although the forgiveness is a huge victory for borrowers, it is a relief to which they were entitled, says Persis, you, Deputy Executive Director at the student borrower Protection Center, make no mistake over 804,000 people are receiving relief with this action because of 804,000 failures. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. You said in a statement, working people have been made collateral damage by a dysfunctional student loan system. The announcement comes weeks after the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's sweeping student loan forgiveness plan, which would have delivered relief to about 37 million people. The Education Department will notify eligible borrowers in the coming days and quote, got it. So about 37 million people would have qualified for a sweeping student loan forgiveness plan. But now we're being told that in actuality, it's only going to impact 804,000 borrowers. Quite a difference there. If you're one of the people that receives the forgiveness, it probably doesn't make as much difference to you. You're just grateful to have the ability. But if you were in that 37 million people category and you're not someone that receives the student loan forgiveness, I would still ask how are you planning to handle that is just food for thought. on Yahoo Finance, it's a similar scene JP Morgan q2 profits surge and show of strength. The byline reads the result kicked off an earnings season where banks of all sizes will be trying to show that they recovered from one of the most challenging periods since the 2008. Financial crisis. All right. Stocks pop amid upbeat Wall Street results. Biden administration to forgive 39 billion in student debt. Over on LinkedIn, we find AI big stay biggest work trends. We're halfway through 2023. And recent data findings from LinkedIn reveal five key trends to keep an eye on for the remainder of the year from AI's impact to the dawn of the big stay. Notably, only 15% of us professionals say they're currently using artificial intelligence in their jobs and job transitions in May 2023. Were down 34.3% From a year earlier, as tracked by LinkedIn members activity. Other must watch trends include remote job scares. City, no de, the peak of hybrid roles. So what happens after a peak it goes down, and the importance of fresh skills and quote, right? I warned you, I warned you, in my opinion, hybrid was going to be used as a stepping stone. Now does that mean every single company that offers hybrid will push everyone into full RTO? No, I try my best to stay away from always never everyone, no one, and the huge, sweeping hyperbolic statements, the kind that I've talked about before that drives me crazy. You got three more days, you've got two more weeks, all of society is going to collapse and we're going to be in a zombie apocalypse. I try to stay away from that stuff, because I just don't think it's helpful. People hear that they recognize that it's hyperbolic and silly, and they tune out. So then they actually don't hear the message that you should be delivering to them. Remote job scarcity. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt, the peak of hybrid roles. I think that for many, not for all, but for many companies, the so called Hell of half measures hybrid work will transition into full on RTO. I talked earlier about Jamie Dimon. In that article that came up on my phone, one of the things that he was talking about is getting people back to 2019. Where they are commuting and they are working Monday through Friday in an office. They're downtown. They're eating in the restaurants in the cafes, they're getting their coffee in a coffee shop, they're shopping, etc. I don't feel like it's buried information. That Wall Street and corporate America along with the mayors of the cities that want you to quote cross pollinate downtown. They they want you back to 2019 Now that we're not playing anymore, even though allow me to say that was not a joke for me. I'm still dealing with the ramifications of it, even though that's all over with supposedly and we don't need to worry about it anymore. Get your button downtown. Go back, get back to the cube farm. If you're still scared about illnesses, well, sorry about your if you don't have childcare, eldercare pet care anymore. Well, sorry about you. But we want you back. To me, this is clear as day. And if you wait for a mainstream media news outlet to tell you Oh, hey, it looks like remote jobs are getting scarce. And there's like hella competition for them. Now. It looks like we might have hit peak hybrid and like, probably they're gonna make you are to at this point and just be button seen in the cube farm like five days a week. By the time you're hearing about that on a mainstream media outlet. It means it's too big to ignore. Hello, hi, how are you? We also find on a nut unrelated note which I could have told you. Good workers pay hike skids to a halt, say that four times fast gig workers pay hike skids to a halt. A minimum wage hike for about 660 1000 food delivery drivers and NYC set to go into effect this week was put on hold when a judge ruled in favor of Uber DoorDash and Grubhub, which had sued to stop the race. The company's argued that the new rate $17.96 An hour would raise prices for customers and reduce work for drivers many of whom make less than the current $15 an hour minimum wage. Nationwide drivers have struggled to get better pay and benefits despite huge demand for their services. Drivers are often at the margins of the labor market. Urban Institute economist Kate bond tells X Axios with Cornell labor Professor Andrew Andrew Wolf, adding that in New York City, especially many are undocumented, and quote, I would say this goes beyond food delivery drivers and it goes beyond New York City. I have told you the opportunities that I have seen whether we're talking about freelancing platforms or we're talking about the major job boards, opportunities for freelance remote gigs are going down. And the amount of money that people are looking to pay in those opportunities has gone down. I understand if that sounds dour and sour, I'm just trying to be real with you about what I'm seeing in real time. I've talked about things like we want a full on credential, human resources manager and we want to pay 15 to 20 an hour and it's like Pam, you do realize that a position like that is going to be worth a lot more than 15 to 20 bucks an hour right? It's just crazy. Or we need somebody to be a fractional corporate recruiter, but we can only pay 10 bucks an hour and it's like well then you're not going to get very good quality results. Hello the This is the hearing the now. Also on LinkedIn, we find rate hikes boost big banks. Well good for them. It seems America's big banks are benefiting from higher interest rates. Imagine Wow, what a shock. US bank earnings kicked off Friday with results from the country's biggest lender JP Morgan. Its revenue jumped to a record $41.3 billion thanks to higher rates and its acquisition of failed midsize lender first republic in March. Wells Fargo also earned more than expected in the second quarter and lifted its guidance for the year. The US economy continues to perform better than many had expected says CEO Charlie Scharf city announced an 11% Jump in revenue from us personal banking in the second quarter reaping the gains as customers borrow more said Bloomberg. But yet I bet if you tried to tell some of these Neo lib jerks the same thing and protected and confer victory should Neo cons to Why leave them out because they want to lick the boots of corporate America and Wall Street it's like if you tried to tell them people are hurting customers are borrowing more because they need the money. They're doing Buy now pay later to get groceries dammit. This is not a good site to compare trickery.

Anyway, BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager reported net income of $1.4 billion up 27% From a year earlier. Yeah, because the old Kook told you there's winners and there's losers, but they ain't no big deal because it's the simple man baby that's gonna pay for the bills and the pills and thrills to kill ya up 27% $1.4 billion. Could God heavyweights Morgan Stanley and Bank of America report earnings on Tuesday while Goldman Sachs which has lowered expectations about its results, reports on Wednesday, regional banks also began reporting earnings next week, JP Morgan now employs more than 300,000 people. Its headcount up 8% from a year ago, Bloomberg reports in quote. Yeah, yep, yep. Yep. I hope that you are getting your mind, right. I hope that you were doing whatever it is that you feel like makes sense for you and your family to experience an economic downturn? Because in my opinion, it's coming. I hope I'm wrong. I really do. I don't mind getting on here and eating crow and saying, apparently, there was a magical Hail Mary pass. Things are better people are doing great. I would be happy to do that. I just don't think that that's what we're going to see anytime soon. The fat cats are feathering their nests. They're profiteering like crazy. Meanwhile, other people are going into debt and doing Buy now pay later for basic necessities. This cannot be good. Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, when you have wealth inequality to that level, and you have the feudal lords, enriching themselves like parasitic ticks, and then you have working class and working poor people struggling to buy groceries, having to put those items on credit cards, or do buy now pay later at the grocery store. Common Sense alone would tell you trouble is brewing. At least that's how I see it. Stay safe, stay sane, and I will see you in the next episode.

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