15 Oct Saturday Broadcast 20
Key topics:
✔️ ICYMI news, 10/9 – 10/14.
✔️ The war hawks want war and they’re not being shy in saying so. As soon as you drop the term “regime change” in the media, your agenda is really obvious.
✔️ The yard sales and garage sales seem totally empty, even when it’s sunny and 75. Unfortunately the window of time to sell unwanted stuff to make extra money may have passed.
✔️ More and more houses seem to have the look of economic distress. This is clearly not a good sign.
✔️ As Billy Currington once said, “God is great. Beer is good. And people are crazy.”
Links I mention:
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/10/putin-must-go-now-is-the-time-for-regime-change-in-russia/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/08/asia/north-korea-missile-launch/index.html
https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2022/10/11/good/
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/act-scores-are-lowest-in-decades-4995305/
Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/
Siren courtesy of Pixabay.
Transcription by Otter.ai. Please forgive any typos!
Hello, Hello, thanks for tuning in recording this portion of the broadcast on Sunday, October 9, a couple of things I wanted to talk about quickly. One is just a bird’s eye view of what I’m seeing in the Midwest. I mentioned in a previous broadcast, it seems like even when you go in a traditional department store or grocery store, it’s like you have to treat it like it’s an outlet or discount center where maybe the things you see on the shelf will be there next week, maybe they won’t. So if you have the means to be able to stock up on certain items and get them while they’re there in front of you on the shelf, it might not be a bad idea. I’m also noticing whenever I go in my local supercenter, a lot of times I can’t even find a shopping cart have to go back out to the parking lot and look for one out there find somebody that’s just unloaded their cart and is willing to give it to me, the people at the front don’t really seem to give a crap and you get in there and it’s like, well, if I’m gonna buy groceries or a large item, I can’t just carry all that stuff around in my hands, I’m gonna have to actually have a shopping cart to put it all in. I’m recently had to go to the next town over. And so I went in there Walmart to try to find a few things. And I was surprised, because that particular store is in a more kind of upper class, upper middle class affluent type area. And they did not have as many shortages as my local Walmart, which is in a little bit more of a rural area, they didn’t have as many shortages. So one thing I wanted to mention was if you’re not finding something locally, and you have the means to drive to another place to look for it, that might not be a bad idea, you might be able to find the things that you need at a different store. With that being said inflation still present. So it wasn’t like I went into this more affluent Walmart and just found things at a bargain, I did not. But at least I was able to pick up a few things that I needed, didn’t have to go without or try to order them from the internet. So that was an added bonus, I guess. But don’t be afraid to check other stores. If your local store is out of something, and you have the means to be able to drive somewhere else and look for it, it might not be a bad idea. Likewise, I’m not telling anybody to hoard anything. I’m just saying if you need something and it’s there, and you can afford to purchase it, it might not be a bad idea to put it in your basket when you’re right there looking at it, because when you go back the next week, it might not be there. I had found some sinus wash. It was like everything was already pre packaged and ready to go like the bottle had been sterilized. The mix was already in the bottle, all you had to do was take it out and use it to clean out your sinuses. Since I’ve been getting over the sinus infection from hell, and the air is still incredibly dry. We’ve had no rain. I’m still running the humidifier at night. And then I like to do a sinus wash after I get up and around in the morning. Especially because I’m already having to put out hay. For the animals. The pasture looks terrible. The grass is just dry and desiccated. What little is left of it. So I like to do the sinus wash. I could not even get down the aisle. It looks like a mob of people down the sinus and allergy medicine aisle and I’m like, Okay, so that’s gonna be a hell no, I was able to go just at least far enough into the aisle to get some pre made like that saline solution for your nose, I was able to get a bottle of that, which was better than nothing. But I’m like, I’m not going to elbow my way through those people. Some of them may be sick, that may be why they’re down this medication aisle. So I’m just going to throw the saline solution in the basket and roll. But it’s good to have what you need on hand because it may not be there when you go back. It’s sad that we have to think in those terms. But here we are. Also sad that we have to think in these terms, apparently, oh, John Bolton has been going around the media for the past month or two talking about regime change. And if Putin does this, it’s like he’s signing his own suicide note. And I’m like, Oh, God, like we need this. Like, we need this. And I’ve said before, I feel like we’re on a slow roll down a bad Hill. I don’t think this is one of those situations where everything was sunshine and roses. And then this one black swan event happened and it just sent everything to hell. I don’t think so. There are a lot of fear mongers and hype beasts on the internet that they want to get you scared they want to tell you every little dust up that happens is the thing. This is Armageddon. This is world war three. This is it. You’ve got X amount of hours, you got X amount of days until dot, dot dot and then nothing happens. That’s like whenever the Nord Stream pipeline was breached. I didn’t sit here and say Oh, I think this is world war three. I think this is the thing. No, my spidey senses didn’t tell me that at all. Like this is just yet another brick in the wall. This is yet another first down in the football game. The ball is slowly getting edged down the cool or what will be the catalyst? Or what could be the catalyst? I don’t know. At any point in time, the snowball that’s rolling down the hill could turn into a full on avalanche. But I think this is a slow roll down a bad Hill. And then when you have Bolton going around through the media, like, Oh, Tom for regime change, I’m like, Oh, God, please stop. Please, please, please don’t do this. You know, and there’s some commentators right now on YouTube, like, well, we just better make sure that we vote in the midterms, and these people will solve all the problems and I’m like, What planet are you on? I mean, seriously, what neocon or neoliberal either one Have you ever met? That wasn’t a war hawk. Which one of them? Can you point out to me and say, Yeah, this person actually abhors bloodshed and warfare. This person does not want to increase the size and scope of the federal government. This one actually seems to care about the little guy, the working class person, which one? I’m not aware of any of them that are like that. A lot of these people are waist deep. In the military industrial complex. A lot of them are shareholder stakeholder stockholders, in these huge military defense contracting companies. They have a vested interest, let’s be real in sending people to war in fomenting conflict. So it’s like, which one are you going to point out to me that’s supposedly going to be the savior of all of this? Because I don’t buy it. Sorry, I don’t. So apparently on 1940 five.com old John Bolton penned an op ed titled Putin must go, now is the time for regime change in Russia. In this we read, For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power President Biden said of Vladimir Putin in March, a month after Russia’s second unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. In remarks, the Washington Post called the most defiant and aggressive speech about Russia by an American president since Ronald Reagan. Biden staff, however, immediately backpedaled saying the President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia or regime change. Later, Biden himself dutifully resigned from regime change. Why the angst, there is no long term prospect for peace and security in Europe without regime change in Russia. Russians are already discussing it quietly, for obvious reasons for the United States and others, pretending that the issue is not before will do far more harm than good. And quote, Oh, wow. He is I mean, for those of us who are old enough to remember the Cold War, for those of us who are old enough to remember what he’s talking about the Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall and the Empire of evil and the Iron Curtain and all that all that flipping up, fomenting conflict rhetoric we heard back in the 80s, East versus West and all that. I mean, this is definitely a flashback. Now, I’ve talked before about how this could shape up to be a Redux episode of the 1982 recession and feels like we may as well be right back and about that same fucking time. Here we go. Oh, just not gonna be any long term prospect for peace and security in Europe without regime change in Russia. But how the hell does he know that? Mean? That’s That’s an awful godlike type of comment, like I can foresee the future. I know all I see all and I am telling you, this is a fact. It’s a freaking op ed. ipso facto by its very nature, he’s just giving you his opinion. This is not there shouldn’t be some sort of biblical proclamation here. There is no long term prospect for peace without regime change. If in fact, the Russians themselves want to discuss it within their own countries their right to do so it’s their country, if they want to see their leadership change, if they want to try to get rid of political corruption and politicians in their country who just never seem to leave power. That’s up to them. But it’s very scary to me to think about, okay, here we go, again, the United States as the supposedly world’s policeman, that’s gonna go and put our fingers and all of these different pies. And if you think for one second, that there’s not money involved in this, in my opinion, you’re nuts. Somebody’s always profiteering off of this. You know, there are some commentators who think that World War Two is really what ultimately pulled America out of the Great Depression. So I mean, could war be used as an economic stimulator mean the engines of war take a lot of money and a lot of resources to operate properly, and the people that are shareholders and stakeholders and stockholders Isn’t these military, defense contracting companies make a boatload of money when we go to war? They surely do. So I mean, could this be used as a way to bolster the economy? Could this be used as a way to paper over problems? In other words, okay, so the Fed is openly admitting they want to crash the job market. They want to see unemployment go up, inflation is not abating. Even though the Fed keeps telling us they’re gonna keep pumping up interest rates. To try to get this inflation under control. It does not seem to be working. Could warfare be used as a distraction? In my opinion, it very well could. Now that’s not going to be of any comfort to someone who has a son or grandson or a daughter or granddaughter die in the theater of war. But do you think that these fat cats care about that? Get real? So whenever I hear these commentators act like okay, the politicians will save us it’s like, right, of course. Of course. That’s like letting the Fed crash the job market the same people who printed up and distributed fiat currency like it was candy are somehow going to solve this problem that they created. That is some next level hopium in my opinion. Today, it is Monday, October 10. Over on CNBC, we have headlines today such as NASDAQ falls to two year low on Monday led by a decline in chip stocks. This is serious. JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon warns us likely to tip into a recession in six to nine months. Hmm. Six to nine months. Okay. Well, what the hell are we in now? Come on. Come on man. Paul Tudor Jones believes we’re in or near a recession says stocks haven’t bottomed. Well, at least that sounds a little bit more realistic to me. ARKS Cathy wood issues open letter to the Fed, saying it is risking an economic bust. Feds Evans says fighting inflation is the top priority even if that means job losses. Yeah, they’re not being shy. They are not being shy in telling you what is coming down the road. Five nine shares plunge more than 20% After CEO announced his resignation. Over on the side panel for LinkedIn, we find Russia retaliates after bridge blast. Spotify pulls plug on 11 podcasts. And apparently those podcasts were original content. I thought at first that they were pulling the plug on independent podcasts on their platform for censorship reasons because Hello, let’s face it. That’s very common nowadays. But apparently the podcasts they’ve stopped producing were original content. Hackers target us airport websites. holiday sales are already coming in hot. Pay transparency changes job hunting. Paris goes dark amid energy crisis. rivian recalls nearly all its cars. All the gains popularity as prices soar. Burger King wants Whopper revamp. Okay. So there is further turmoil going on in this conflict between Russia and the Ukraine. If you’re not familiar with what happened. headline on NBC News reads, Russia unleashes deadly strikes on cities across Ukraine after Crimea bridge attack. President Vladimir Putin announced in a televised address that his military had launched the strikes as revenge for a blast that damage the bridge connecting Russia and annexed Crimea over the weekend. We get into the thick of this reread, Russia unleashed a barrage of deadly attacks on cities across the Ukraine on Monday hitting the heart of the country’s capital Kyiv as part of a wave of strikes against civilians and infrastructure not seen since the earliest days of the war from Lviv in the West to Kharkiv in the Northeast missiles tore through rush hour traffic and into energy facilities and apparent retaliation for a blast that damaged a Key Bridge to the annexed Crimean peninsula over the weekend. So, to me, I kind of put this in the same bucket as the Nord Stream sabotage, we still don’t really know exactly what happened there. Am I saying this is the touchstone This is the kickoff to world war three. No. Remember, we had people telling us that by the fall we would be in a famine. The Apocalypse would have happened. We would be living in the Thunderdome every man for himself. That has not happened. One of the things that I talked about was I think we will still have food it’s entirely possible that we will have food on the shelf there just won’t be as much of it and there won’t be as great of a variety At so far in my part of the Midwest that is bearing out to be true. Now at any point in time, that could change because when you look at the number of cattlemen and ranchers that have had to sell off their herds, the drought, the cost of feed, the cost of fuel and fertilizer, etc. We may still be in for some very difficult shortages, the way that things look in the summer of 2023. Who knows I don’t I don’t have any big predictions or ideas for that just yet. We have to remember there are people the click baiters and the fear mongers, you’ve got five days left. You’ve only got one more month until dot dot dot and then you watch the video and it’s like a bunch of hot air or someone who is quite probably a cultist, there. I said it. I’ve been dying to say it for a while now. Some of the people that you find in those clickbait circles are cray cray, in my opinion, okay, everyone’s got an opinion. They’re entitled to theirs. And I’m entitled to mine. As soon as I start going through your content, and you’re talking about I follow an evangelist who says he knows when the world is going to end. Or my preacher says, If you isolate this one scripture and you turn the letters and numbers and you divide it by five, and you take the square root of pi, then you’ll find out the date that Armageddon is going to kick off the minute that you start in that stuff with me, I’m done. I’m out. Men go crazy. And congregations, they only get better one by one. I have no desire to be in a weird, freaky and have days cult. No, thank you. And I’m not picking on any one particular religion because you find the same thing in New Age circles to Oh, if you look at this Nostradamus quatrain he predicted this and it’s like, no, no, you would have to be reading this drunk and making the most liberal of interpretations to get this out of that. Like, let’s be real here. So I don’t think that there is any one particular thing we can point to that’s happened, where it’s like, Yep, here we go. This is world war three, strap in, get ready. To me it still feeling like a slow roll down a bad Hill. Also, in the midst of all this if we want to just further talk about weird geopolitical turmoil, North Korea is being accused of firing to ballistic missiles. Apparently at Japan, according to South Korea, and Japan, North Korea has been firing ballistic missiles. where’s this going to lead? I have no idea. I don’t personally feel in my spidey senses that any one particular thing that’s happened so far is like the spark that’s going to ignite a major world war. I don’t know. That’s not just me. Oh, pining for your entertainment only and telling you what my gut instinct is saying. slow roll down a bad Hill. At any point in time that could change something so egregious and horrible could happen, that finally the engines of war strike up. And here we go. I mean, I talked in the portion I recorded yesterday about John Bolton saying it’s time for a regime change in Russia. At any point in time. There could be the spark that finally ignites something terrible at any point in time. You know, the USA trying to be the world’s police man could step forward and say all right, we’re gonna change out the regime or else who who knows who knows what’s coming. I feel like it’s important to keep your head on a swivel have good situational awareness, not scared and paranoid or hyper vigilant, but aware, prepared, not scared. Today, it is Tuesday, October 11. on CNBC, we have headlines such as s&p 500 closes lower notch his five day losing streak ahead of key inflation report. Mehta CEO Mark Zuckerberg debuts men a quest Pro VR headset that will cost $1,500 mere chump change in your pocket change in the middle of a terrible economic situation slash runaway inflation. I’m sure everybody can pay $1,500 for his freakin VR headsets. Elon Musk denies report that he talked to Putin recently about the Ukraine war, Uber and DoorDash plunge after Labor Department proposes change to gig worker classification. Couple of things I want to say about this as someone who works 1099 independent contractor. To me, it’s about transparency and consent. If that’s what everyone agrees to, if you say I want to be 1099, I carry my own benefits. I don’t need or want anything from you. Tell me what the project needs. Tell me what you want me to do. I’m an independent contractor. And let’s keep it that way. It shouldn’t be anybody else’s business, if that’s what you agree to. Everybody signs off on the scope of work and that’s how it’s going to be. Everyone else can but out on the other side of the equation, if it’s not what you consent to, if you thought that you were signing up for a W two full time job with benefits, and then you have some shady employer that’s trying to pull the rug out from underneath you and say well, no So we want you to be 1099. And I know we said during the interview, we’d give you a, b, c and d. But now we can’t. I think that’s where it’s, it’s becoming problematic for people if it’s a bait and switch. But if someone wants to be 1099 and take care of themselves, leave them alone. Get out of it. It’s bad enough mortgage rates are over 7%. Now, it’s harder to qualify for a home loan. Is that bad, though? I mean, I understand that the interest rates are are going up and nobody really wants to deal with that. But having more stringent requirements to be able to qualify for a home loan is not necessarily a bad thing. When we look at these predatory loans, like the ninja loans, for example, no income, no job or assets, here’s some quote free money. Well, it’s not free. A lot of those stupid loans were like loan sharking. There is no such thing as a free lunch. So if some bank is coming to you saying we’ll give you a 0% down 125% financing home loan, you know, like there dude back before the bubble was like, Oh, 70809 and all that crazy mess that happened. If they’re telling you they’re going to do that. It’s because they expect to make a profit off of you. There is no such thing as a free lunch. There’s no such thing as free money from these Wall Street fat cats. Not not going to happen. on Yahoo Finance, we find s&p 500 Nasdaq closed lower ahead of inflation report and earnings. US stocks fell on Tuesday to cap a back and forth session as investors gear up for a big inflation report on Wednesday, and the start of third quarter earnings season. Bank of America has warning for traders betting stocks are near the bottom. I wouldn’t bet on that. We don’t know where the bottom is on this. And I am very suspicious of any commentators, especially if I think they’re corporate shills, who are telling you buy the dip. The worst is basically coming to an end everything’s getting ready to rebound. So look at these stocks that are currently on a downward trend. Go ahead and buy them. I’m not doing that. I can’t tell you what to do. I cannot give you financial advice of any kind. Speaking solely for myself. I’m not buying any dips right now. I’m sort of strategically taking a step back and saying I can’t time the bottom of this thing. But my spidey senses telling me we’re nowhere near the bottom right now. So I don’t want to spend a bunch of money that I probably could use for other things on trying to quote buy the dip Uber and Lyft stocks tank as Biden labor plan shakes up the gig economy our retirement reform efforts in DC going nowhere. Well, I mean what what do you think? Over on the side panel for LinkedIn, we find I m f’s economic outlook gets gloomier, who could be surprised by that crypto firm hit with record $29 million dollar fine. Amazon’s Prime Day 2.0 boom or bust. Remember, I told you there are a lot of retailers that are running sales. They’re hoping that you will go ahead and spend some discretionary income, maybe you’re planning ahead for the holidays on whatever junk, no offense, whatever junk they’re trying to trot out. And if there is something that you legitimately need, or you have some money already set aside for your holiday spending, and it’s not going to financially harm you in any way, you may be able to pick up some good deals and that’s entirely possible. Again, I can’t tell you what to do. Just speaking solely for myself. I’m being very, very cautious and conscientious. I’ve also been really looking at clearance racks to be honest, this is going to be a clearance rack Christmas. And if anybody complains about it, well, sorry. I haven’t won the Powerball. I’m still a working class person myself. I haven’t won the Powerball. Great Aunt Harriet somewhere that I don’t even know about hasn’t croaked and sent me millions of dollars. So it’s going to be a clearance rack Christmas. It is what it is. Sick question mark. Your voice could give clues. I think about the times I’ve recorded episode when I damn near had laryngitis or had sinus infections. And it’s like if that offends somebody by Get over yourself. Worker wins webcam privacy suit. Now I wrote a blog post about that and published it earlier today because I think that’s fantastic. Is it coming to an American near you? I don’t think so. I still think corporate America has way too much power and control. And I think that if they want to surveil you, they’re going to figure out how to do it. But this particular worker was based out in the Netherlands and he was like, I’m tired of the this company telling me I need to be on camera for nine hours a day. That’s ridiculous. It’s an invasion of my privacy. So he took it through the court systems in the Netherlands and they said it was a violation of human rights. I will drop a link to my blog. On post, so you can check it out if you want to read more about this, but I mean, I think it’s great. It sets a very clear precedent of that much in effing surveillance, I’m going to keep it G rated that much. Surveillance is crazy. It’s not only crazy, it’s not only absurd, it’s not only completely unnecessary for a worker to do a job successfully, is a violation of their human rights. It’s a violation of their basic right to privacy to that I say. I think it’s great. Will it happen here in the States? Probably not, at least not anytime soon? I don’t I don’t see that same kind of hard line in the sand. This is a violation of your human rights happening here in the good ol US of A Time will tell maybe I’m wrong. I don’t see that happening in the immediate term. Diamond issues recession warning. Oh, Jamie diamond again. So he’s telling us that he thinks we’re going to slip into a recession and about six to nine months. I don’t know where his head is out on that. Think we’re already in a recession. And we have been. So if we slip into something else slip into something a little bit more comfortable. We slip into something else in six to nine months, what the hell is that going to be? How bad will that be? I don’t even want to think about it. Gig workers to get wage law coverage. Again, as I said it, to me, that’s all about transparency and consent. If you want to be 299 independent contractor because that’s what you want. Nobody should be getting in the way of that that should be your right to negotiate for yourself. If on the other hand, it was your understanding you were being hired as a W two full time employee with benefits and then you get the bait and switch. That is not cool. Transparency and Consent. Today is Wednesday, October 12. on CNBC, we have headlines such as Fed officials expect higher rates to stay in place meeting minutes show. Cash is king again, as money managers are in no rush to embrace risk with fed raising rates. I don’t think there are a lot of people right now who are in a rush to embrace risk. I think a lot of us have decided to batten down the hatches and just do what we have to do to ride out this. Whatever economic poopoo storm, s&p 500 closes lower notching six days of losses ahead of key inflation report. consumer inflation expected to have run hot in September boosted by read. I don’t really think that we need a report to tell us that inflation ran hot in September, I think if you went well, basically anywhere you saw it. AMC Entertainment struggles with falling stock, high debt load and light blockbuster schedule. You know, I was thinking in terms of my immediate social circle, I don’t believe I know anybody that goes to the movie theater on a regular basis anymore. Back in like my late teens and early 20s, I went to the movies a lot really, I would say probably all through my 20s I kept the movie theater hot. That was just one of our favorite things to do. But now, no, I would much rather just wait till something comes out for rent, it’s available on streaming. And then we only spend a few bucks. If we don’t like it, it’s no big loss. But I was thinking back to that couple I overheard in the Walmart talking about how they’ve gone out to dinner. And then they went to the movie theater to see Jurassic World and they didn’t even really care that much for the movie. And I’m like, in the midst of all of this inflation, where everything is so much more expensive. And it feels like every dime that you make matters. Why would you go and blow money on an evening out? And then say well, we didn’t even really like the movie and I mean really have a good time. Like she probably should have just stayed in. I’m just saying also in a okay moment we have could have Phillies World Series when really trigger an economic downturn. I mean, it’s like they are trying to blame literally anything. Like literally anything even now, which baseball team wins or loses is going to have the finger of blame pointed at them for a recession. And I’m like, This is so ridiculous. If it were a comedy skit, it would be hilarious. But it’s not. This is the clown world we find ourselves living in these days. A baseball team is going to get blamed for inflation and a recession really. Over on Yahoo Finance we find Fed officials say the cost of doing too little outweighs the cost of doing too much. Well, okay. Stocks end day lower as investors await CPI report. Pepsi will be fine regardless of a recession CFO says institutional investors buying in bulk as home buying pools. Yeah, but remember all the people who said we would just never have another 2008 home prices will only go up. They’re only going to appreciate nothing is going to come down. There won’t be any discounts. Those people looks dubious right now, and a lot of them have gotten very quiet. The man’s planers, the bots, the trolls, the shills, a lot of those people that we’re putting out that hot air and propaganda have suddenly gotten really quiet. Isn’t that something? I’ll be publishing a bonus episode on Monday that was inspired by an Orlando minor video, where he talks about sitting it out with purpose. Meaning, if you’ve been sitting on the sidelines, you’re waiting for the market to change, you’re waiting for more optimal conditions. You don’t have to sit and do nothing. You can continue to do your research, you can keep your side of the street clean financially, interface with a broker, make sure that your pre approval is still good. And then be ready to roll. I love that energy. I love that much more active, dynamic, awake, alive energy. It’s like how my friend Eric likes to say there’s a difference between waiting versus persisting. And I think he’s right. In my mind, waiting is passive waiting is well, I mean, okay, maybe someday, it’s kind of like your whereas persisting. And as Orlando calls it, sitting it out with purpose, doing your research, keeping your finances in order, keeping an eye on the markets and the listings, that’s a much more active spot to be in, as, and as I’ve started to transition out of the strategic quitting phase of my real estate quest, and really dip a toe back in the market. That’s what I have been striving to do to keep an eye on the trends and to watch what’s happening. Because, yes, here in the Midwest, there are still idiotic sellers that are trying to get top dollar for absolute junk. I mean, just houses that are a hot dumpster fire train wreck of a mess. You know, here, I have a burned out meth trailer on 10 acres, and I think you should give me 600 grand for it. And it’s like, well, that’s not gonna happen. And nobody’s going to do that for you. You you miss the window of opportunity, dude, I have been keeping an eye on the initial wave of foreclosures, short sales, auctions, people in distress that are just trying to get rid of stuff they grossly overpaid for where is it going to go? I don’t really know. But I want to be primed and ready. I want to be able to have a good common sense grasp of what’s actually going on, so that I’m not at the mercy of people who quite possibly might be liars and manipulators. Around here, there are still people banging the drum, we would never have another 2008 This is just a temporary setback, but those home values are gonna go right back up, you don’t think that we’re going to have prices go down anytime soon. Meanwhile, I am actually already seeing that first wave price reductions, you can start to tell who actually is a motivated seller by how often they’re doing a price reduction. Now, as Orlando points out, also, quite rightly, in that video, if somebody has overpriced their crap, buy 100k, and they do a 20k price reduction. Well, all right, it’s still 80 grand overpriced. But what I’m noticing here in the Midwest is you may have somebody start out grossly overpriced, but then about every two weeks, you’ll start to see a price reduction. So like they’re going to try to slowly but surely whittle away at how much they’ve overpriced the house. So I think it’s going to be an interesting ride. But I have really speaking in a much more like metaphysical, spiritual kind of sense. I’ve gotten much more into deliberate creation. Let’s manifest this stuff. Let’s get it going. I’m tired of delaying my dream. I’ve had my time to lick my wounds, I’ve had my time to strategically quit and wait for more optimal conditions. And I think, you know, knock on wood, I could be wrong here. But I think we’re at the beginning, I think we’re on the leading edge here in the midwest of that initial wave of people who got in over their heads, or sad to say, people who are going to get bit in a layoff because that’s the thing what if you had somebody who overpaid for a house last year, they really let FOMO get the better of them. And then in the coming months of working adults in the household, let’s say whether it’s a single person or a couple, they all get laid off from their jobs at around the same time. And depending upon how brutal unemployment becomes, that’s a very real possibility. And when you can’t make the mortgage payment month after month, what happens then? They don’t do a foreclosure immediately. But you can’t just avoid paying the house forever. Eventually, it is going to catch up. I don’t want to profit here. I don’t want to to take advantage of anybody that’s in a bad situation. My goal is really to focus based on the price point, something that makes sense for me and mine that is affordable so that we can get moved on and I can expand my rescue and rehabilitation efforts. That’s what’s most important to me. So to be honest, it feels good to be back in that creative space to be sitting it out with purpose, sitting on the sidelines, not going to the concession stand and drinking soda pops and eating hot dogs, but really watching the game. Like okay, I’ve had my time I’ve had my break, I’ve been able to collect myself mentally and spiritually a little bit better. Now it’s time to get back in the bleachers and watch the football game, because I think it’s going to get interesting. I really do. Over on the side panel for LinkedIn, we have Intel plans major layoff report says, yeah, so in tomorrow’s episode, I’ll be talking about what I think is a new narrative shaping up more media outlets saying okay, all right, the job market is not quite so hot. But no major layoffs. q4 is not going to be layoff season, you’re all going to be all right. And meanwhile, I’m like, on On what planet? I mean, we’ve already had layoffs, we have more layoffs being announced every single day. So I’m not sure how anyone can say with a straight face, that layoffs are not coming. The Fed has already said they want to crash the job market, they want to see a million or two people unemployed. So how you can say, with any kind of journalistic ethics that you don’t see layoffs coming, I don’t know how you make that work. I really don’t. But then again, you know, you have apparently people saying that whoever wins or loses a baseball game is going to be responsible for recessions. I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. If it were a comedy movie, it would be hilarious. It really would be. We also see that home flippers are on shaky ground. Yeah, I bet they are a bet they are. In fact, speaking of auctions, there’s a house. In my area that’s getting ready to come up for auction, it’s not a good fit for me. Unfortunately, if it were, if it was a good fit for me and my goals for my animals, I would definitely be taking it seriously. Unfortunately, it’s not. So bring it up to say there was a realtor who bought the house, and then put a grossly inflated price tag on it. Truth be told all things considered, I would, I would say it’s probably about a $300,000 property. So the arrogant idiot realtor, I’m just gonna say it, I’m gonna call a thing a thing. The arrogant idiot realtor who purchased it, trying to put a $600,000 price tag on it. Of course, nobody took it because this this was after the FOMO. And the intensity that was 2021 had passed. This was just only a few months ago. So that realtor was trying to sell the property and just kind of doing like what Orlando’s talking about these kind of minor price reductions, 10k here and 5k there and 10k there. So I think he eventually whittled it down to 500k. But we’re talking about it’s still 200 grand overpriced, who wants to pay that for that place? And of course, it was being sold as is. So I’m sure there was a litany of problems that went along with it. Now it’s up for auction, the starting price is 100k. What will it finish at Time will tell I’m going to keep an eye on it just for market research purposes. But that that kind of tells you the shaky ground that some of these home flippers may be on. I know that last year some of those people made a freaking killing. I know they did. Not so much now. This is why I think Orlando’s advice is good advice. Keeping an eye on the market, knowing what’s going on being able to filter in and out what’s BS and hot air, what makes sense in your area and being ready to make a move when the time is right. Not doing it prematurely not rushing into anything or thinking that the music will never stop playing and the party will never end. But being judicious with your finances and judicious about whatever maneuvers you’re making. To me that’s very sage advice. I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t offer you advice. I would just say in general that good critical thinking and caveat and tour will not put you in the wrong direction. Today it is Thursday, October 13. Tomorrow morning, I will be releasing another special broadcast because there’s some information that’s been put out from Bank of America that their projection is we will lose 175,000 jobs per month over the span of 2023. If you miss that episode, this episode, of course is going to drop on Saturday morning. So I would encourage you to go back and listen to that episode if you missed it. Share that with friends and family. If there’s anybody in you know that you care about, and you feel like maybe they’ve bury their head in the sand. They think the job market is fine. They still believe this hopium that unemployment is at 3.5% there probably won’t be layoffs and q4. I would really encourage you to share that episode with them. Over on Yahoo Finance today we have stocks roar back after plunging on inflation print, stocks react to the second consecutive hotter than expected CPI print. It’s only hotter than expected, I guess if you’ve been living under a rock or if you’re ultra wealthy, and money really doesn’t matter that much to you because you have so damn much of it. But for the rest of us down here on Earth, I think it’s pretty obvious that inflation has not slowed down. Mortgage rates reached 20 year high close in on 7%. Kroger and Albertsons in talks for possible merger. Inflation, grocery prices jumped 13% in September. Inflation was terrible. Here’s why the market rallied the stock market took it literally on Thursday with a massive rally following an inflation reading that everyone agreed was way too hot. Yeah, I mean, it’s almost like this whole thing is being manipulated, isn’t it? Over on the side panel for LinkedIn, we find Netflix unveils cheaper ad plan. AC T scores are lowest in decades, winter heating bills set to rocket I’ve been talking before about a long, hot summer, followed by a winter of discontent, be prepared for anything this winter. Still yet here in the Midwest, the almanac has really not been correct for us and I’m just being honest. Now that doesn’t mean that we won’t have a cold difficult winter. I’m still reading the typical signs that we look for in agriculture. At this point, my mule looks like he stuck his finger in a light socket on his finger I guess is stuck is off and the light socket just is so hairy. And every day he gets hairier and hairier. He’s starting to look like the Wolfman. A red puffy Wolf. So I think we’re going to have some cold temperatures this winter. Tomorrow. I think so Friday the 14th I think tomorrow is supposed to be at five degrees. Our weather is so weird. So so very weird. Nevertheless, I mean, do you have firewood? Do you have emergency heat? You have plenty of blankets and sweaters and long johns I mean, be thinking about this now. Because even if you keep power even if you don’t have a blizzard or snow squalls or anything that serious, when we’re talking about heating bills set to skyrocket, then you need to be prepared, not scared but prepared because you may have to keep the thermostat a little lower than normal and just bundle up. I know that’s not music to anyone’s ears. I’m just keeping it real. That’s that’s a very distinct possibility for a lot of us. Kroger and Albertsons and merger talks. Here’s why childcare is a struggle. I think that Alissa court talks about this very well in the book squeezed how expensive it is now to have a child, let alone children, plural. How much childcare costs, I’ve talked before about childcare deserts. There are certain places where they had childcare, they had daycare, pre pandemic, but when we had two years to flatten the curve, a lot of those places went out of business. It just wasn’t sustainable anymore. So there’s an increased number of childcare deserts. And it’s almost like where you can find reputable good, solid daycare. The cost is so absurd. I mean, why is childcare a struggle? I mean, hello. You know, the old phrase is the economy stupid. Apple Nicks is perks for unionized store. This may also be a wave of the future. It may very well be that employers will say if you want to unionize if you want to draw a line in the sand, you want to keep the great resignation going, or you want to stay remote, you want to get pay raises, you know, insert whatever here, it’ll cost you $1 billion weather disaster every 18 days. So that sounds lovely. Now if we click on this article, AC T scores are the lowest in decades we read. Average scores on AC t have plunged to an alarming three decade low. According to the organization behind the exam test takers in 2022 earned an average score of 19.8 out of 36, down from 20.3 in 2021. That’s still sound great. And 42% of this year, students failed to achieve the minimum score in English, math, reading and science compared to just 38% in 2021. Scores on the SATs rival exams that also aimed to assess college readiness declined as well. Fortunately for those who did poorly, many universities stopped requiring standardized tests during the pandemic in quote, full disclosure here I hate standardized tests. For me as an introvert with some degree of neurodiversity, I hate, hey, standardized tests. I was always one of those kids and young people that I would sit there, and I could see so many different angles to the answers. I would I seriously guys, I would sit there like Frasier Crane. You were in that episode of Frasier. We’re Niles asked him, do you think maris and I should stay together? Or do you think we should get a divorce? And so Fraser takes the question. So seriously, he walks the streets of Seattle, he turns everything over in his mind 100 different ways. Then he goes and knocks on Niles door at like three o’clock in the morning and Niles is like, Where have you been used Mel of the streets? Niall didn’t Niles didn’t even remember asking Fraser. The question. But Fraser had taken it so seriously. Okay, that was me sitting there trying to take these stupid standardized tests, I would just be like, Okay, well, we can rule out a automatically. That’s preposterous, B, I don’t know, I could make a case for C. So I would sit there and just like, twist my guts. And I’m not trying to do these standardized tests. So I’m not a big fan of them. I do think it’s an alarming situation, though, that the scores are just perpetually going down. I feel like there’s maybe more to that story. And when I think also to this statistic that most adult Americans cannot read at a sixth grade level. That’s really what I find troubling. Obviously, yes, being able to perform math and science that’s, that’s important, too. But really, the linchpin to all of that is being able to read, if you’re not functionally literate, you’re not going to be able to absorb the other information that you need to absorb to be a good functional, self actualized, well rounded adult. Where is this going? I don’t know. But I do find it troubling. I really do. And I go back to the argument of when when you when you got rid of like reading and critical thinking and logic, you told people that arts and humanities and philosophy weren’t important told them they didn’t have to read anymore, then you wound up with a society full of people that act like I didn’t know it was fake news. A new note was misinformation. How could it be anything other than that? What other option Have you left? Today, it is Friday, October 14. Before I get into today’s headlines, I want to use myself as a good example of a bad example, little sister, don’t you do what your big sister done? Don’t be like me, please, please note. So I went to a grocery store different from the ones I usually shop at, because I had read their sales circular, and they had some really good deals on items that we needed. So it justified me driving over to a store in another town that I typically don’t use. And I thought, haha, man plans and God laughs hasn’t that been my theme for the week? I thought that by going in an offbeat time on Friday, when kids would probably be in school parents would be at work, maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with crowds. No, apparently everyone else in the same town had the same idea because it seemed to be really busy for a random time on a Friday. So I was able to get everything that I needed. And you know how it is when you go to the store nowadays, if you’re lucky, there might be two cashiers operating registers. Other than that self checkout is your only option. And I know there are some people who vehemently hate self checkout. And I’ve also heard horror stories of it being like a monogrammed invitation for the store to accuse you of shoplifting. So I understand arguments on both sides of the issue. For me, it’s whatever if I only have like 10 items in my basket, and I don’t want to wait behind someone that has like 400 items, then I’ll usually just go through the checkout. To me, it’s whatever I’m going to do whatever I feel like makes sense in that moment. So I’m waiting for the self checkout to become available. This this particular store only had three of them. And one of them was broken. And it was clear that it was broken the light saying that the register is available, it was turned off and there was just gibberish across the screen. So I’m waiting and I don’t even really know what I was thinking about at the particular time. But here comes this woman and her daughter. And they seem to exemplify the old phrase The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. The woman looked like an uptight stuck up Joby, as did her teenage daughter. I mean, they were totally cut from that same spoiled, entitled cloth. They only had one item, and they just acted like they were so butthurt and offended that nobody else who was waiting was like oh, yeah, just go to the front of the line get ahead of us. Our time doesn’t matter. You only have the one item and you’re both clearly spoiled, entitled princesses. So you just go ahead of all the rest of us. Nobody did that. And you could tell that they were really offended by By that, so they tried to go and use the self checkout machine that was obviously broken. Some random store employee finally came up and said, like, I’m sorry, but that machine is down, we have already called the technician to come, but it’s not going to work until it’s properly repaired. So they acted like they were butthurt and mad at the world over that. And all I can tell you, you know, this, I blame on the Irish part of my ancestry, I just don’t have much of a poker face to speak of. I really don’t think I can put that on the Russian or Eastern European part of my ancestry. Because I know a lot of Russians that can get stone faced, I mean, they can bluff like nobody’s business, and you just don’t know what they’re thinking you don’t know what kind of cards they’re holding in a car game. They’re excellent at it. Me not so much. A lot of the other people either who are Irish or have Irish extraction, sometimes whatever they are thinking is right across their face. So if they are thinking that you are a royal dumbass, it’s going to be apparent. I so I put that on my Irish ancestry. The only thing I can figure is that I must have had my thoughts and my Schadenfreude to written right across my face because I was sitting there thinking like, first of all, you’re idiots. It’s obvious that that machine is broken. Second of all, you’re not entitled to a damn thing in this life. We you’re not entitled for all of us to move out of the way like you are Moses parting the Red Sea. I’m sorry that you only have one item and you think that that entitles you to something but it really doesn’t. You need to get back at the back of the line. Maybe you’re too spoiled, uptight. Yuppie behinds need to be told no, once in a while, might build some character up there for you. I assume that because I was sitting standing there feeling like a smug sense of satisfaction and a little bit of Schadenfreude that they got slapped down. Probably that was written all over my face. So they get back in the back of the line. And I hear the teenage girl go mommy, she gave us a dirty look that woman up their game as a dirty look. And I hear the woman reply back to her. Oh, I know, I could feel it. I could sense it, I could just see her dirty expression. I mean, I’m laughing about it now because it didn’t escalate. They eventually just went to one of the lines that actually had a cashier working. But I could feel them being mad at me and the teenage girl would periodically turn around and mean mug me. And but they they got checked out and they left and nothing happened. But I’m like, I have got to be more mindful of that. Because as I’ve said, on the airwaves before, people right now are short tempered. And a good rule of thumb is don’t start No, she won’t be no rush. Don’t start things up with people. And I’m offering my own self up here as a good example of a bad example. Because what if that had gone sideways? I mean, I know how to defend myself properly. I know how to take care of myself. And people like that, that are very spoiled and entitled, they typically fold like a piece of paper in a fight. But you know, what if that woman’s husband had been out in the parking lot, and she had come in there and tried to get him to beat me up or something, you don’t know what people are thinking? You really don’t. And more and more these days, I’m reminded of that old Billy Currington song God is great. Beer is good. And people are crazy. They damn sure are. So I have to check myself. I have to make sure that if I’m standing there thinking, wow, the two little yuppie princesses got smacked down. And I love it. Perhaps that doesn’t need to be written across my face. I need to do a better job of stonewalling stone facing so that nobody knows that’s what I’m thinking I need to check myself in that regard. So just as I’ve been on the airwaves, saying please don’t start anything. Don’t mean mug people don’t get into it. Just do what you need to do if you need to shop with a buddy. If Be aware of your surroundings, keep your head on a swivel. I have to do that too. Even though I didn’t say jack squat to them. Apparently my facial expression was clear enough that they knew precisely what I was thinking. So I need to do a better job with that because it is not worth it to get hurt or killed or be involved in some kind of terrible altercation because somebody decided to act like a complete dumbass at the grocery store. Okay, we live we learn I’m putting that out there. As I said, Little Sister Don’t you do what your big sister done? Don’t don’t have mean mug expressions or, you know clearly have Schadenfreude written across your face at the grocery store. I’m just saying over on CNBC. Today we have headlines such as dow closes 400 points lower to end a wild week of trading. How Kroger plans to win over Washington and Wall Street on its deal to buy Albertsons. It seems to me that that’s going full steam ahead. I would be very sad surprised if they didn’t wind up merging together. Jamie Dimon says expect other surprises from choppy markets after UK pensions nearly imploded. I wouldn’t take us pensions for granted either. You know, I have heard stories about how whatever the pension system is out there in California, I think it was only hours away from going bankrupt. Seems like I heard that on one of the news channels. I would not assume that something devastating like that could not happen to people in the United States, I hope and I pray that it doesn’t. I’m just saying that’s a possibility. You have to remember, for those of us who are old enough to recall the Enron scandal, that was horrible. And for me, as a young adult, trying to kind of make my way in the world and figure out what I wanted out of my career. That was terrifying. To see people on TV crying, they thought they had done the right thing. They thought they had all of this money saved up for retirement, and the golden parachute was gone. Wasn’t anything that could be done, they were going to have to work for the rest of their lives. You know, when you see that, as a young adult, it makes one hell of an impression on you. I feel like in a way it leaves a psychic scar. You just sort of look at that. And you go okay, I don’t want that to be me. I don’t have all the answers. I know I’m not going to do everything right in life. But good Heavenly God, I don’t want that to be me. So I just feel like it’s not a good idea to bury your head in the sand and assume Okay, well, maybe something bad happened in the UK. But there’s just no way that that could happen here. Don’t get so far into either normalcy bias or this American exceptionalism. Oh, we would just never have an economic crash so bad. It wiped out pensions, or we would just never have an economic crash so bad it would wipe out social security. I don’t know what kind of opium that would be. I hope and pray that that doesn’t happen. But I don’t know. I don’t know. Over on Yahoo Finance, we have Feds daily says hot CPI shows the data not cooperating. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly told Yahoo Finance that she expects the Fed to stay the course when it comes to expectations for interest rate hikes, after the latest core inflation reading came in at a 40 year high. Whatever the hell it is they’re doing or think they’re doing. It’s not working. Still yet. Okay. One of the other places that I hit up today was the Dollar General. And it was more expensive than it was two weeks ago. In some respects. I was stunned. Because I’m like, Damn, I’m just looking at this stuff. And I’m like, how does it just keep going up and up and up? It’s $1. General, like this is supposed to be the, quote, cheap place to shop. And yet, every time you go in, you’re more squeezed than you were the time before it is very frustrating. So what they’re doing is not working. Stocks erase gains tumbled to end volatile week on Wall Street. Wall Street banks profits slide as economic clouds and loom. Analysts bullish as Netflix unveils key add to your details. I mean, I don’t know maybe people are going to have the 699 a month to sit through some commercials in order to get access to Netflix. It may be that that 699 makes or breaks their ability at the grocery store. I know some people may hear that and laugh but let me tell you, as someone who has lived paycheck to paycheck on the razor’s edge as someone who has been working poor $7 can be a hell of a lot when you’re in that situation. I mean, I wouldn’t pay 699 To watch a bunch of ads on Netflix. To me that’s like a big No thanks. I can think of many other things that I would rather spend $7 on than that. Now. Maybe that’s just me, crusty old introvert. But for me, it’s a big no thanks. Also, today, it was 85 degrees. Now next week, I think we’re supposed to finally have a freeze, which is early if we do if it bears out true, that would be early, but is 85. High winds in different parts of the state. Towns are burning, unfortunately, right now due to fire risk. It’s hot and dry. We’re actually right now in this part of the state in a drought that’s considered exceptional. So it’s the highest rating on the drought scale. It is so dry my pasture still looks terrible. And there are cracks in the ground. Human has been so dry for so long that the ground is cracking. It’s it’s depressing. It’s almost like I hope to God we don’t have a dust bowl. Not that I’m sitting out here trying to be you know, Debbie Downer or anything. It’s just when you when you raise animals, you have these animals that are dependent on you for their safety. These are things that you have to think about. You have to think ahead and you have to plan ahead when it comes to the weather. Already having to have animals that’s early. Hey, is terribly expensive. I heard on the news today that hay around here in this part of the Midwest is up 40%. In some cases, it’s up a hell of a lot more than that. In some cases, I would say it’s about double. And some people are to be honest with you price gouging what they have. So even though it was sunny and 85 Today, I did not see really anyone having yard sales or garage sales, which I thought was interesting, because like, last week, I think it was I saw so many and like nobody there. So I talked to a friend of mine. She is by her own admission by her own moniker a junker. That’s what she enjoys. And she works for a guy who owns like a chain of it’s not like a like a changing like chain restaurant, but just like a group of like flea markets, secondhand stores, and like places like that, like, oh, yeah, antique shops, too. That’s the other one was trying to think of it as like, like flea markets and antique shops and secondhand stores, and she buys for him. So she has got to, like, you know, marry one of her passions with her job of being able to go out to like estate sales, yard sales, garage sales, other thrift stores, etc. Try to find bargains for things that he can turn around and then resell in his shops. So I asked her like, Okay, your this is this is your area, like when you’re going to these yard sales and garage sales? What are you seeing, because the last time that I saw a bunch of people in town having garage sales and yard sales, no one was there. Whereas in times past, if they had a garage sale when it was sunny and 75, and everything was just beautiful, you would not have been able to squeeze another human being into their yard if your life depended on it. So I just found that really startling, does that jive with what you’re saying? And she was she laughed and said, I really almost don’t want you to report on this on the airwaves, because I’ve had all this time of not having much competition to speak of. So she was like, No, when I’m going to like estate sales, yard sales and garage sales. It’s usually like me, and maybe two or three other people will pass through the whole time that I’m there. So I’ve been able to really pick up some good deals for the store. Because it’s like, I’ll just go up and say, here’s what I can pay in cash for these items, or this item right now today. Do you want it or not? Because like when you look around, and there’s basically nobody else? No other takers? You know, it’s a big advantage for the buyer to be able to say like, Hey, do you want this cash right now? Or do you not choose? And of course, sometimes you’ve got people that are stubborn, they think that their junk is worth so much. And they’ll just say no, no thanks, get lost, but a lot of people are selling because they need the money. And so I think we may be at a point now in terms of people just not having the discretionary income. That’s why I say even at 699, there may not be people that want Netflix, there may still be people that say, I would rather use that $7 for something else. If people are not even going to yard sales and garage sales, that says a lot to me. And I think some of these people may have missed their window of opportunity if they had stuff that they needed to sell for financial reasons or they wanted to sell, they may have missed the boat on the timing, because I’m just not seeing people going to these yard sales and garage sales like they typically would if the economy was better. I also want to say that in terms of what I’m seeing in the real estate market here in the Midwest, I have noticed something interesting lately, which is more of these houses going on the market where in the write up you find realtor is same as owner or realtor is the seller. And I thought back to the conversation I had with the mortgage broker who talked about how many of his peers in the industry realtors and other brokers alike, who went and got themselves obligated for everything under the sun, expensive houses, luxury cars, swimming pools, ATVs, toy haulers, et cetera, et cetera at all. And now they’re pooping in their pants because they see this market downturn. So regardless of what they say, in reality, they see that a downturn is happening in the housing market. All these eight holes who said we would just never and there this is not a housing bubble, this is going to last forever, evidently not. So they’re trying to unload these houses that they bought, and hand the bag to somebody else. They don’t want to be caught holding the bag, they want to hand it off to somebody else. Some of them may already be in trouble. They may already be on the edge of having the place foreclosed. If they didn’t do anything smart with their commission money. That’s one thing I’m noticing. The other thing I want to say is I’m noticing an uptick in what I would consider to be luxury homes and McMansions where somebody decides to list their 10,000 square foot mansion and try to get a couple million dollars for it as if anybody can can give that to them right now. It’s like who the hell do you think is going to come out here and pay $2 million for your giant McMansion? This isn’t Hollywood. This isn’t the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard. Get real. You know, what do you think some oil tycoon is going to come out here if some, you know multimillionaire from the days of old is going to come out here, oh, this is oil and gas territory. I might strike it rich in the oil market out here. Those days have been and gone. So I think some people may really wind up in a world of hurt. And I mean, on a human level, yes, I have compassion for that. But in the same way that I laughed at the two little yuppies that got there. They got their little hand SWOT and and told no, and it made me feel good. I don’t feel sorry for some rich idiot, or someone who wanted to pretend to be rich. They wanted to LARP that they were rich. And so they went and bought a McMansion that they couldn’t actually afford. Maybe that sounds cold of me. Oh, well. Oh, well, if it does, I’m sorry. I don’t feel sorry for Yep, he’s an idiot. What is it? What is the phrase God looks out after fools and children, something like that. I don’t think the phrase is God watches out over nouveau riche idiots who bid off more than they could chew. So it’ll be interesting to see how this goes. My point is when you’re starting to see realtors who bought places and now they want to get the hell out, you’re starting to see these people with McMansions that don’t want to be left holding the bag. I think that says something very important about the overall real estate market. Still not seeing just masses of foreclosures yet, but I am seeing houses that they have that they have that look, that’s really reminiscent of 2007 2008 watched a video on YouTube. And I cannot remember the man’s name. I’m the I’m the type of person that I never forget a face. But names tend to fly right out of my head. So I don’t remember the man’s name. But he had a video on YouTube where he was talking about, like, at what point did things just become crappy disposable plastic junk. Because it used to be that things were built to last. There was a pride and ownership, there was a pride and craftsmanship. And if you bought something, okay, it may have been expensive. But you knew that it was going to last a long time. And you also knew that you were making a commitment to take good care of it. People had that sense of pride. And by and large, they just don’t anymore. And that’s kind of the vibe that I’m seeing with these houses, especially these like doodoo poop, in my opinion, okay, to each his own. And I lived in one of them before let’s don’t forget, but these do do poop suburbanite tract, housing neighborhoods where everybody is just squeezed close together where you just basically can pop your hand out the window and slap the sign on the other guy’s house. Everybody’s just squeezed together. And there’s just junk everywhere. That was one of the things that struck me as I was driving back from the Dollar General and this grocery store and I was just looking just serving the same. And I was like, damn, this is depressing. It really is because you would see these yards. Of course, right now everyone’s yard is brown and ratty looking. Because we’re in an exceptional drought. They’re rationing water. You cannot turn a sprinkler on and just water your lawn right now. Unless you want them to come and take your water meter. That’s a whole nother topic for a whole nother time. So everyone’s yard looks brown and crispy and gross. But it goes beyond that. You know, trampolines that look like they have been rode hard and put up wet. Like we’re the the mesh stuff that you jump on is like falling apart. toys everywhere that have just been neglected swimming pools that are kind of saggy and deflated. jungle gyms and like little kid playground equipment that looks like if you touched it, you draw back your hand with about 15 splinters. I mean, just junk what I would consider to be junk. And it hasn’t even been taken care of. I mean, back in the day, if you left your toys out, you would get fussed out and your parents or grandparents whoever was around when would they would give you a speech, you would be told like you need to learn how to take better care of your things. Once you get out and you’re working for a living you understand how much things cost, you don’t need to leave your bicycle out. You don’t need to leave you know balls and this and that strewn out all over the lawn. You put your toys away, you take them out and you play with them. And then when you’re done, you put them away. I just don’t think there’s any of that anymore. I think people wherever the kid is, when they’re done with that toy, they just sling it down and they don’t care. And unfortunately that don’t care attitude seems to be permeating everything. And in that same video about what When did pride of ownership pride of craftsmanship, style Bob, the guy also talks about you people used to dress nice in public. Even if they were just going to take the train somewhere even if they were just going to go down to the local diner, you know, and have the blue, the blue plate special, nothing fancy. They weren’t going to like a big sit down elaborate candlelight dinner, just the blue plate special at the local diner. They would still put some real pride and effort into their appearance. And then he juxtapose that, you know, somebody dressed about like Cary Grant. With a dude standing in Walmart in I’m not kidding, a pair of boxer shorts standing there in his underwear and an under shirt. Like, at what point? Did we go from Cary Grant in the suit to dude standing there in an undershirt and boxer shorts? I don’t know. I mean, I don’t have an official answer for you on that. I’m really just kind of thinking out loud. Like that guy. I mean, at what point did everything just become disposable cheap crap. And did people just stop caring. But you see that attitude as you drive through these suburbanite track house places, unless they’re brand new, and the people haven’t had time to trash them out yet? They look horrible. And it’s like, no one gives a crap. I just I sort of feel like, I’m gonna say it again. Welcome to America. It’s like, this is what we are becoming. And I don’t, I’m not saying that. It’s about whether someone’s rich or someone’s poor, because you can, you can have not two nickels to rub together and still care about your stuff. I mean, when I was living paycheck to paycheck, and I was working poor, I couldn’t do anything fancy. But I kept my house clean. I kept the yard clean. I didn’t just throw trash out in the yard and say, Who gives a crap? You know, like, I just think that there’s a certain amount of that, like, I’m going to take care of this. And I definitely did. I mean, living paycheck to paycheck like that, and having to Panhandle for change at work to take the toll road home. It’s like, This is my house, and I want it to be the best that it can be. I had pride and ownership. And it meant a lot to me. I kept the place clean. At times, you probably could have eaten off the floors on that house. So I guess it just blows my mind. This absolute fundamental lack of give a damn. And it doesn’t matter to me what your income is. It doesn’t matter to me if you are living in a place that’s about like a cardboard box or if you’re living in a McMansion, it doesn’t take that much effort to clean, it doesn’t take that much effort to say, I’m not going to let the kids destroy their toys out in the yard. You know, I guess, I guess I just don’t understand that. And I don’t think it bodes well for what’s going on in the housing market. Because I think we will see okay, prediction alert, call me Debbie downer, call me e or that’s fine prediction alert here. I think we will see more and more of those houses where you drive by and everything looks like crap. Those will probably turn into foreclosure homes. If they’re not already a foreclosure home that somebody has flipped into a rent house where the people are trashing it out because they just don’t care. If that’s not already the situation for that house, it will probably turn into a foreclosure house. Because of the people really just don’t care about their investment to that degree. It’s not going to surprise me if they stopped making the payment and the bank throws them out. I know none of this sounds pleasant. It’s not pleasant to talk about or pleasant to think about. But I do think we have to plan ahead. Be prepared, not scared. And if you are planning to invest, if you’re sitting there with your cash stacked up and you’re looking for houses to buy as investment properties, you’re probably going to have a pretty good opportunity sooner rather than later. I’m tired. I’m ready to just relax. We can’t even talk anymore rest relax, let Calgon take me away. Stay safe, stay sane. And I will see you in the next episode.
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