The November Election & the Beginning of Act 2

In May of 2023, I published a podcast episode to warn that I felt we were moving out of the Opening Act into Act 1 of this economic nightmare. I believe the November election will usher in Act 2. What exactly will this look like? I dunno. Quite frankly the information I'm hearing is not good.

Links:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1125110/12885167

https://consaracytheories.com/f/of-course-theyre-not-concerned

https://thejobmarketjournal.com/f/like-the-house-crony-capitalism-wins

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

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

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey. 

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. In today's episode, I wanted to talk about act two. And by that I mean Act Two of whatever you want to label this economic situation, recession, depression, silent depression, economic freefall, economic cataclysm, collapse, inflationary cycle, hyperinflation, stagflation, crony capitalist hell, et cetera, et cetera. Pick your own nomenclature. I will give my standard disclaimer here. 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. And that's it. On May 22, of 2023, I recorded the podcast episode we're in Act One. I was seeing some warnings about a recession. Of course, we already knew at that point in time that we were in a recession, we had mainstream media outlets saying, hey, even a mild recession is going to screw us over. All of these jobs are at risk. We had talking heads in the media as well as so called economists and so called experts that reassured people we would not see mass layoffs, things would generally be okay. And then we had mass layoffs, Cal Sopris. I've been on the air and on my blogs warning people about this over and over again. That was one of the reasons why I had to just give up on the Saturday broadcasts. I know a lot of you enjoyed those and tuned in faithfully. I just tapped out day after day, week after week having to recite the same things over and over again, the gaslighting, the psychological manipulation, the mockingbird media trying to convince us that everything's fine. If you're in a bad mood about the economy, well, it's just your own damn fault. Because things are great, low unemployment rate, historically low unemployment rate churning and burning resilient consumer. I mean, anybody with half a brain knew that they were full of it. I believe. I hope that I'm wrong about this, believe me. But I believe that we will see the beginning of Act Two, somewhere in proximity to the November election on shortly before shortly after, I'm not sure but somewhere in proximity to the November election, I believe that's when we will slide out of Act One and slide into Act Two. Just as I did with the episode about Act One, the question obviously becomes based on what you have this idea based on what evidence what theories what notions. As you know, whenever I hear something through one of my back channels, or I've heard something that I cannot independently verify it hasn't been released to those of us in the unwashed masses through the mainstream media just yet. I will refer to it as a whisper on the wind. I'm going to have to just be unnecessarily vague. I want to protect the privacy of the people that I count on to help keep me and my family informed. This all really started for me a little while back. It's been a few weeks now. I talked to some of my back channels that are in the know, again, I'm sorry that I have to be necessarily vague. But suffice it to say these people have not steered me wrong. If they have ever told me it's not a good time to travel, it's not a time to be in a large group. It's not a time for this or that they have been correct 10 out of 10 times 100% of the time, they have given me solid information. So I had gone to them because I would really like to go to the JFK Presidential Museum just for an afternoon just to just to bum around and take pictures to be a tourist essentially buy some overpriced stuff in the gift shop and then come home. I really don't travel anymore. It's been almost a decade since I've been on an airplane and went anywhere. I had a significant distance and I'm fine with that. When I made the commitment to participate in agriculture to do animal rescue and rehabilitation, I knew that I wasn't going to be a Rolling Stone who gathered no Moss and I'm an introvert and a homebody anyway, so It's no big deal. But I have really wanted to fly up there again just for a day and mill around and be a tourist and buy my tchotchkes and then come home. So I'd gone to these people in my backchannels and said, I, I'm thinking about taking a day trip. And I just want to get some sense of whether it's safe, or I need to table this for yet to be determined time in the future. Well, the very first thing that they replied back to me was, is this an international trip? I said, No, absolutely not. They replied back good. Because there's no way in hell that we would recommend international travel, we're in too much of a powder keg environment, you have all of these battles and bits of turmoil and nightmare scenarios going on throughout the world. Now, I have a friend recently who did decide to take a big European vacation, and I thought, Oh, my God, you are really, really playing with fire, because anything could happen. I understand that sounds pessimistic. I understand that. That sounds Chicken Little. I'm just telling you, as I've said before, I myself would not want to get way far away from home, especially in a foreign country, where I would just have to go try to hold up at the embassy and hope I was going to be able to get evacuated out. It's all fun and games, until sh t f. And then everybody wants a bailout. And it's like, well, why the hell did you go off to some foreign nation, you know, not as part of a humanitarian effort, but to go be a tourist, knowing that we're in a geopolitical shitstorm? I mean, you know, I'm pointing to my noggin, here, you got one use it. So that, to me is like, no, it goes without saying no, I'm not going to try to make an international trip, this would be something domestic. And they told me in no uncertain terms, if you are thinking about making a day trip like that, you need to go before the election, if you're not able to make it, for whatever reason, lack of time, lack of money, couldn't make it happen, whatever, if you're not able to make your little day trip domestically, before the election, don't go, just put it on the back burner. And we'll have to wait for some other time. mean, they were pretty firm, in letting me know that they do not have good expectations. And, again, I have to be necessarily vague here. I'm trying to be careful. There could be let me put it this way, because I don't know the future for certain. And it doesn't matter over much to me whether we have another dose of senile old man who eats ice cream and goes around telling people that his behind has been wiped, or whether we have the orange MAN. Again, six, one half a dozen than the other. What does it really matter? I think John and Jane Q Public are screwed either way. We've had the fat cats at Davos tell us that they think the Orange Man is going back into office and they're fine with it. So what does that tell you? Was he ever really going to drain the swamp? Was he ever really going to fight back against these powerful interests? I mean, really. Moreover, I don't think it matters over much, who gets elected. But there could be I'm not telling you there will be I'm telling you, there could be the possibility the potentiality exists for there to be some real turmoil on during around or after the election itself. We also have this situation that could boil up it could be one big nothing burger. I hope it is. I hope it's a goose egg. And it turns out to be nothing. But we have the potentiality of this mess with the bird flu getting blown up to be the next. The next reason to have a lockdown two weeks to flatten the curve. We could have mail in ballots. There's just too much of a powder keg environment, whether you're thinking about geopolitically with all of these dust ups that turn into hot kinetic warfare and X of T E R R O R, or whether you're thinking about domestically, the divisiveness in America and how tricky things could get as we get closer and closer to November. I don't think it matters whether you're talking about donkey or elephant red or blue. If we had shutdowns and lockdowns and mail in ballots, it's not going to matter who wins. I'm using big air quotes here who wins? It won't matter. Whoever loses whatever side loses will say that it was As fraud if we, if somebody gets in office and there needs to be.

Again, I'm going to try to be really, really careful here. If somebody gets into office and there is a plate towards authoritarian control, there could be a declaration of martial law. There could be suppose it retaliation a country feeling like America is weak could try to come after us. I don't want to get too far afield here. I don't want to get into too many nightmare dystopian speculations. Just suffice it to say, there could be the potential exists for a variety of scenarios, none of which are good. I hope not, I pray not. I hope that everything is just smooth as glass. It would be wonderful. If these various battles and wars would stop. It would be nice if the outcome of the election would be civil, and that everything would be fine. But we just don't know. And having heard what I did the Whisper on the wind through my back channels that thus far have not ever steered me wrong, they've not ever given me bad advice. They've never predicted something and it not happen. I really think that we're going to go into act to somewhere on or around the election. As I said in the last episode about getting your mind right, during a downturn, we're not going to be able to prepare for everything. I'm not Zuckerberg, I don't have billions of dollars, and an underground Hawaiian bunker with armed guards and enough canned goods to last another lifetime. I can only do what I can do. And who knows, I mean, there have been all sorts of negative predictions that didn't come to pass in the wind up. There's only so much that any of us can foresee and have the resources to adequately plan ahead for I also in that episode talked about Sufficient unto the day, we don't want to get too far in the future in our mind, and start borrowing trouble worrying about tomorrow, next quarter, next year, next decade. We don't even know if we were having this conversation and 2014, for example, and imagining the and the shutdowns and the inflation and the reams and reams of fiat currency in the situation that we have before us now and 2024, it would seem unfathomable, people are going to all go home. These employers that have always been so rigid about wanting everybody but insane in the office are going to send everybody home with a laptop, really, it would have just seemed unbelievable to us. So I think getting too far into the future is a dicey prospect, and it will probably cause you to have more anxiety and depression, then it's worth to even engage in that exercise. What does act to look like? I don't know. i There's no way for me to sit here and be like Nostradamus or Carnac, the great Johnny Carson Show. I don't know what Act Two looks like. I would say that, based on the way that act one has played out thus far. at a bare minimum, we could expect more of the same. Now I know that people will be tempted to say, Well, that depends on the outcome of the election. If Orange Man gets back in office, then he will clean up this mess. This is all the fault of senile old man. This is Biden nomics. And I'm like, Yeah, right. Now, okay. Over I'm of the Jim Garrison belief that the President is really just a business agent. That office has become nothing more than a sock puppet for the military industrial complex, the military intelligence complex, corporate America, the defense contractors, et cetera. I really don't think that presidential power is much of anything anymore. I think that in the same way that John and Jane Q Public are told, sit down, shut up and get out of the way. Like we're supposed to be pacified with bread and circus. Take your pablum believe whatever we tell you and sit down and shut the EFF up. The President similarly, is given this attitude of Sit down, shut up and get out of the way, you can trot out and say whatever you want to that sounds good sounds flowery to the general public. But when it really boils down, you need to be furthering our agenda. And if that's going to be a problem for you, then you just simply won't be here anymore. Therefore, I don't really think that it's going to matter very much whether we have the orange MAN, or we have the senile old man. I wish that I could give you something more optimistic than that, unfortunately, from where I'm sitting, and from my viewpoint, I just can't. If the Orange Man gets back in will he really fix everything that's gone on, will he fix the inflationary cycle? I doubt it. Because look, Operation warp speed happened on his watch. And then when you look at how some of these big pharmaceutical companies, that profit teared, mercilessly during the QA, were also donors to him. Mm hmm. Things that make you go hmm. Will he magically fix the economy? I doubt it. Will we ever get back to 2018 2019 prices? I doubt it. I never say never. I can't sit here and tell you definitively like I'm God Almighty, that we never will. I'm just telling you I am highly, highly, highly, highly skeptical that we will ever see 2018 2019 prices again. I just don't think so. You've had too many warnings from fat cats out in the mainstream media telling you that the inflation is permanent. And even trying to gaslight you that it would be bad for the economy and bad for the job market if prices came down. If we hit a deflationary cycle, that would really screw us even worse. So you're just gonna have to like put up with the permanent inflation in order for the whole damn economy to not crash. So no, unfortunately, I don't think it's going to matter who is in charge, wink wink up at the White House because we already know that person won't actually be in charge. You also have to factor in rising minimum wage at various parts of the country. various companies that have had strikes and walkouts wage increases. I've written before that. Really, if any of those tactics worked in the long haul, John and Jane Q Public would not be allowed to do them. Corporate America is always going to figure out a way to win. I've written about this on the job market journal before, just like the casino, just like the house in Vegas, crony capitalism is always going to win. That's like in California, you see this big increase in minimum wage for fast food workers. So you already have manager saying we're going to turn to robots, we're going to cut hours, we're going to employ fewer people. The house is always going to win. So I think act two, but let me try to corral my thoughts a little bit better here. I think in act two, we're gonna get more of the same. I think we're still gonna have to deal with inflation. I don't think it's gonna matter ultimately, who goes in? Who gets elected in November? And then who's going to go in? on Inauguration Day, whatever day that'll be in January of 2025. I don't think it's going to matter very much. The fat cats and robber barons at the top of the pyramid will continue to enrich themselves. What's your evidence, Sarah? Well, they've continued to do it year after year after year, the web is already telling us that within a decade, we'll have a trillionaire. As I've predicted before, I think they're giving an a generous timeframe. I think we'll see a trillionaire before 10 years from now, it could happen really, at any point. I just think that you've seen such a tremendous wealth transfer from the poor, the working poor, the middle class, etc. Like the tube of toothpaste analogy that I use, you squeeze a tube of toothpaste from the bottom up so that everything collects at the top. Since it's not hard to see that I think we're going to have job loss. I think we're going to have more layoffs. And I think you're going to also have people that are dealing with chronic underemployment. I think you will also see a continued shift towards AI and robotics to replace whatever jobs and employer thinks can be replaced by AI and robots. It's like the old cliche about Stalin saying people make problems. If you don't have a person you don't have a problem. I think You're gonna see a lot of employers moving in that direction as well. Will it be everybody? No, no, it won't be will it be across industries? No, it won't be. There are still certain pockets of the market where hiring is difficult. People get in and they don't want to leave. Position stay open for a long time. So I'm not telling you that robots are going to on mass replace everybody, or that every single person listening to this broadcast will be the victim of a layoff. I'm not saying that. I'm really giving you my predictions in broad strokes. These are the things that I think we can expect enact to what I really deeply hope and pray does not happen in act two. I hope and I pray that we do not get pulled into some kind of hot kinetic warfare. It seems to me that the war hawks have just been very thirsty. For that to happen. They do not have any compunction about sending somebody else's kids and grandkids to the theater of war. And a lot of these politicians that are so blood thirsty, they've never been in the military, they've never seen combat, but they want to make sure that your kids and grandkids go off to the theater of war. And God knows what happens to them over there. If they ever even make it home again. I hope to God that we don't get pulled into some kind of hot kinetic warfare. But we have to understand that's a real possibility. As I always say, I don't give you advice and I don't tell you what to do. If we were sitting here just casually having a pint at the pub, having this rather dour conversation. My thought would just simply be once you get to that point where all you can do you've done. You're going to have to do your best to keep a positive frame of mind. Take it one day at a time. And just be nimble. be agile, be ready for Come What May because we just don't know. Stay safe, stay sane. And I will see you in the next episode.

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