12 Nov Saturday Broadcast 24
Key topics:
✔️ ICYMI news, 11/7 – 11/11.
✔️ Post midterms we see a tale of two economies. People’r’doin’ great and inflation is coming down – but ha ha not really.
✔️Also: mortgage rates are going down but banks are looking for a bailout. So which is it? Things are improving now but they’re not?
✔️Lord Elon hath told the Twitter staff that work from home forever is done-zo. Do you not think other companies won’t do the same thing?
✔️That guy down the hall might get caught in a layoff but it won’t happen to me! Really?
Links I mention:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/recession-talk-could-be-overblown-morning-brief-103035628.html (save this as a PDF and let’s see how it ages)
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/meta-preps-large-scale-layoff-wsj-5488444/
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/200k-pay-ranges-under-new-nyc-law-5487852/
If you need telehealth in the middle of the night, this is an option to potentially consider: https://www.cvs.com/minuteclinic/virtual-care (as always, do your own research and make your own decisions)
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/job-seekers-wish-they-started-sooner-5491252/
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/ceos-now-freely-saying-recession-6061386/
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/05/housing-market-lobbyists-washington-00063859
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/10/read-elon-musks-first-email-to-all-twitter-employees.html
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/meta-layoffs-workers-reactions-155447842.html
Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/
Siren courtesy of Pixabay.
Transcription by Otter.ai. Please forgive any typos!
Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. Today it is Monday, November 7. Before I get into today’s headlines, I really just want to reiterate, in my opinion, the importance of having a few necessity items on hand, not telling anyone to hoard anything. But just having a little bit of a stockpile of necessity items, the winter is coming, I do not know where you live, what you can expect, but in the event of a blizzard snowstorm, a situation where roads were closed, and you just could not get out anywhere. But also because I have been dealing with this illness, it really reminded me of how grateful I am that I already had a few things on hand like saltine crackers, and chicken broth and sprite, things that we can at least try to consume when we have a not so happy digestive system. I also did, like we did in the early days of the pandemic, where you order online, you have the Door Dash person set it on the porch with no contact to you. I mean, part of that was out of an abundance of caution. And part of it was because I didn’t want any other humans to have to see me looking like a bridge troll. That’s a whole nother story. I do want to remind you, if you purchase things online and have them delivered, double check your expiration dates. Even though the Personal Shopper is supposed to make sure that they do that in the store, it’s still a good idea to just make sure that everything that you have is in date before you consume it. I’m a little gun shy on this topic having gone through this food poisoning event. And I really deeply do not want any of you to go through it either. But really the point is, do you have the things that you need so that in a worst case scenario, if you had to stay home for a couple of weeks and going to the store wasn’t an option, and someone could not get to you you’ve we’re talking about wintertime whether we’re due to ice or snow roads are closed down, and there’s no option to have a DoorDash person come to help you then what? It’s so much better you will sleep easier at night if you have the things that you need already on hand. Now when we go to CNBC, we have headlines today such as dow jumps more than 400 points Monday ahead of us midterm elections, homeowners have lost $1.5 trillion in equity since May as home prices drop. So people that may have been counting on getting one of those HELOC people who may have been looking at the house thinking they were going to use it as an ATM after all, maybe not so much anymore. Elon Musk encourages independents to vote for a Republican Congress ahead of midterms. I’m not even going to click on that. I don’t even know if that’s true. But I mean, the most that I will say is that I don’t see a whole lot of difference between either of the major parties, I myself am registered Independent. So I don’t have a dog in the hunt for the Democrats or the Republicans, in my mind of somebody coming out and saying, hey, I want you as an independent to vote one way or the other. You can piss right off. I will make up my own mind on that. I’m not not interested in hearing somebody else’s opinion on the matter. Consumer confidence in the housing market hits a new low, according to Fannie Mae. Well, yeah, I would say so. Who is feeling confident about it right now, except for maybe the institutional or industrial investors that are looking to pounce. They’re looking to buy up entire complexes or neighborhoods or towns which Mark my words they will do, except for those people who would be feeling excited about it. There’s nothing to feel good about right now. In terms of that Carvana stock tanks in continued sell off. Wow. I don’t know about all these people that are saying to buy the dip, I would be very careful with that. I do not claim to be an economic adviser or or planner of any kind. I’m not a stock market expert. I’m just trying to be very fiscally conservative and careful because how low will it go? And then at what point will it rebound? And then which stocks will make it and which ones won’t? I have no idea so I’m I’m playing it safe myself. Stocks charge higher over on Yahoo Finance. Pardon me, we find stocks charge higher to start big week with minterms inflation data on tap. Twitter owner Musk throws weight behind GOP in US midterms. Why Carvana stock has gotten crushed for the past couple of days. Economic data a bigger driver for markets then the election. Well, I mean, if we think about things in terms of the old political slogan, it’s the economy stupid. I mean, yeah. Now there’s another article that I want to point out specifically called Oh, all that recession talk could be overblown. And I want to really encourage you to save this. Don’t just bookmark it and come back to it later. Because let me let you in on a little sneaky secret. They can go back and change things. They can publish something and then come back later and say it was edited at a later date. And then you don’t necessarily know what it said before. I would really encourage you because I don’t believe that this article is going to age well. So I would encourage you print it as a PDF and save it somewhere on your computer and then let’s come back to it at a later date and see how it pans out. So we have all that recession talk could be overblown Morning Brief. Now I’ll read for you. Weird times. So I’m sitting on Yahoo Finance live on jobs report Friday, almost in a state of disbelief. Non Farm payrolls rose by an impressive 261,000. That didn’t strike me as a recessionary print. Then an economist sitting next to me says he sees a recession in 2023 and a 2% rise in the unemployment rate. We have a recession call for next year. Deutsche Bank securities chief us economist Matthew Lazuli said for a while we’ve had that call. We expect it to happen around the middle of next year. We have the unemployment rate rising to 5.5% by the end of next year. Conflicting economic signals no doubt about it. But conflicting signals are being seen across the economy, notably as it pertains to US consumers pre holiday and consumer centric stocks, Under Armour third quarter suck to last week, and so did the company’s forward guidance, and yet the stock was embraced by the market. Crocs had a solid quarter, but inventory ballooned red flags as my former analysts self. The street welcomed the quarter. Anyway, Etsy had a squishy quarter and the market took it in stride. Same goes for eBay. Then Starbucks reported an 11% same store sales increased despite ever inflating prices for its various coffees. Where’s the recession there? What we focus on is really how do we sustain that Starbucks CFO Rachel McGarry told me and Yahoo finance’s Brooke dipalma In an interview, because it isn’t just pricing, it’s actually volume as well. We’ve seen our customers purchase more so we’re seeing an increased volume. And MasterCard CEO, Michel Maybach are my BOC don’t know tells me there is nothing in his business that suggests recession is imminent. Currently, based on the data that we have, there is no such indication of a recession. The consumer is resilient, and that resilience will last, we have no indication that there is a near term recession. All of this brings me to think that perhaps recession talk is overblown. Maybe consumers will come out and spin spin spin this holiday season. Maybe investors need to better embrace the solid data they’re getting hit over the head with today, instead of buying a potential future of doom and gloom. Keep in mind, all of these rosy fields could change on a dime. Here we go. Here’s the cya statement y’all. Keep in mind, all of these rosy feelings could change on a dime, when we get earnings from Walmart, Target and other retailers in a few days. But for now, perhaps embrace the positive vibes happy trading. Lord have mercy. Oh, yeah, I would I just think it would be a fun little exercise. To print that to PDF. Don’t just save it, because they will probably go back and try to edit it later to make it not look quite so inaccurate. But I will be very, very interested to see how that article ages. As I’ve said before, I don’t think that we’re waiting on some recession that’s going to happen next year. I think we’re in a recession. And I tend to agree with the commentators who say by the time we’re told that we’re in a recession and Oopsy daisy, what a nightmare. It’ll probably be an economic depression. At the very least in my mind, this is shaping up to look like what if the 82 recession had a baby with the 2008 global financial crisis. But then we also mixed in some 1970s era hyperinflation and high crime rates to go along with it. Why don’t we just make a toxic stew from hell? So no, I don’t think that we’re waiting on a recession to occur. I think it’s already here. I also don’t think the unemployment is at any 3.7% I don’t think that we legitimately added 261,000 open jobs that are going to pay a living wage that managers are actually going to hire human beings for I don’t believe it. I’m sorry, I don’t. So when they’re saying that we’ll have a five and a half percent unemployment rate sometime next year. How bad will it actually be? I’m not telling you to panic. I’m not telling you to act like Chicken Little. In my opinion, that article is not going to age. Well, it sounds like hopium it sounds like hot air and nonsense to me. Let’s just all get some good vibes. We’re gonna pull a handful of people in here to say, well, we don’t see any recession. The Richie Rich e’s are still buying their Starbucks or people are putting it on credit cards, you know people that are want to be upper middle class the nouveau riche types that are so painfully desperate to keep up with the Joneses. They may have a Visa card that’s full of Starbucks. Well, we’re gonna get a handful of people to come in here and say what we want them to say. We want you to say that you’re not seeing signs of a recession. We want you to say that things are look looking good. People are doing great, huh? Well, let’s just see how that article ages over the course of time, I think it would be a fun exercise for us all. Over on the side panel for LinkedIn, we find meta preps large scale layoff according to the Wall Street Journal $200,000 pay ranges under the new New York City Law. I’m going to click on that so we can get further into it but who can be surprised? I’ve told y’all the house always wins. This is like Vegas. Even if you have a hot streak and you’re feeling really good man. I played the card so well last night or I hit the slots and it couldn’t have been more perfect. The house is going to win. Unless you have a lot of discipline to take those winnings and get the hell out. The house is going to win. Can Kroger rival seize opportunity. Holiday splurge is get a bah humbug I imagine because who the hell has the money. Airbnb gets more transparent on fees, side hustles rise amid high inflation. Again who can be surprised and none of that information should come as a shock to any of us. Now when we click on meta preps large scale layoffs we find Facebook parent meta is said to be readying its first ever large scale layoff this week, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, the announcement of the staff cuts which reports say could happen Wednesday is expected to affect many 1000s of it’s 807 No, wait a minute, excuse me. I said that wrong 87,000 total workforce and could be the largest headcount reduction at a tech company during the downturn. A meta spokesman declined to comment referring back to recent remarks made by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, that investment would be concentrated on a few high priority growth areas. While some teams might shrink over the next year. tech giants largely boomed during the pandemic with Mehta growing its headcount by 28%. Over the past year alone. Yeah, but remember the economist that said we would not see mass layoffs in q4 how they look and write about now. I also think I saw a headline earlier today that Mehta stock was up. The stock market was loving these cuts that are coming loving the layoffs that are coming so the stock is actually going up. Yeah. Yeah. Isn’t it funny how this economy works? Can’t wait for you to be unemployed. Hmm. When when when we click on $200,000 pay ranges under new New York City Law we find under New York City’s new pay transparency law, most companies are now required to list the minimum and maximum wages for job openings. Lawmakers hoped the legislation would reduce pay disparities and empower workers in salary negotiations. Yet many NYC job seekers are discovering that the range is listed in some job posts are so broad as to be useless. a trauma surgeon at Mount Sinai Health System could earn $384,000 to $800,000 a year. According to ADS, while a compliance director at Wells Fargo could take home anything from 173,000 to 359,000. Job seekers should treat a salary range only as a guidepost Tiffany Jana, CEO of the workplace advisory firm TMI consulting, tells Bloomberg instead of aiming for the average salary, she suggests targeting the higher ranges or beyond. If your qualifications and experience exceed requirements, the house always wins. Not to be emphatically clear. I support pay transparency. I support companies really, honestly and ought to be of their own volition. Putting salary ranges in the descriptions so that candidates know is this just going to be a complete waste of my time or not? People People need that level of honesty. Am I surprised by this news today? Hell no. No, no, no, because I’ve had conversations with hiring managers that said basically the same thing. Well, we don’t really know what we want to pay for this. So why don’t we just say anything from 100 to 200k? Based on experience, and then we’ll kind of take it from there. Okay, well, that’s so large of a spectrum of pay that it’s basically useless. Now, it’s not quite as bad as saying you could make anything from 384k to 800k. That really and truly is pretty much useless. But is it surprising? No, no, no, no, no. This is another reason why I think people who are waiting on a Hail Mary pass, they think that somehow the government is going to take care of them or corporate America is going to turn this around, we’re not going to go into an economic downturn, things are not going to be that bad. And that is a level of hopium and toxic optimism in my opinion that I certainly couldn’t get behind. Today, it is Tuesday, November 8, it is election day for the midterms here in the US. Starting basically early this morning. All of the news outlets were doing wall to wall coverage trying to predict this or that and I think regardless of how you feel about it, which side of the fence you may be on, I have the feeling that it’s going to be a crazy and bumpy ride as the day goes on. I just have that feeling. on CNBC, we have headlines such as dow rallies more than 400 points and final hour of trading as investors await midterm election results. No longer an act of shame, announcing your layoff can be a good career move. Well, why would it be an act of shame to say that you got a pink slip? I mean, it doesn’t even really make much sense to me. Sales Force cut hundreds of employees on Monday. Over on Yahoo Finance we find finance moves to acquire FTX after crypto world spat boils over stocks waver as Wall Street awaits election results. Biden overlooked diesel inflation. That’s bad for the economy. Two things to watch after the market cracked. Tesla stock won’t stop dropping. Here’s how low it could go. Twitter engineers says he was fired for helping co workers who faced layoffs. Wow. Now we also find Twitter meta lift and more. Another wave of layoffs hits tech. Yeah, remember those economists who said no mass layoffs in q4? Sure. Tech layoffs are dominating news feeds and headlines and the cuts are coming across the board. Twitter’s sacking workers in droves, while Mehta is reportedly set to conduct large scale cuts as soon as this week. This isn’t the first round of tech layoffs since the end of the pandemic. But this time the cuts aren’t sector specific. Everyone’s getting slammed said Roger Lee, founder of layoffs dot FYI, a site that tracks the cutbacks earlier in the year layoffs in tech are concentrated within food, transportation and finance startups. But at this point, it’s hitting every sector within tech he told Yahoo Finance Comp TIA Chief Research Officer Tim Herbert said the cuts are related to the broader macro economic climate Do you think which has taken a turn for the worse as the Fed continues to hike rates in an attempt to fight inflation? The Federal Reserve remains intent on slowing the economy. So some corresponding degree of slowing in labor market is inevitable. He said the layoffs are rising tech employment data is telling a slightly more optimistic story. According to Herbert tech job postings for the month came in at 317,000 signaling robust hiring activity for tech talent across many sectors. Okay, I’m not even going to read any more because what would be the point we don’t want to go too far into hot air and hopium I would say ignore reality at your own risk. I agree with what Suze Orman said quite some time back. Pretend you’re already laid off and wargame out your strategy. Today it is Wednesday, November 9. Before I get into today’s headlines, I want to give another unsolicited unpaid shout out. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this, but if you live in the United States, CVS actually has some walk in clinics, but they also have this thing called Minute Clinic where if you are needing telehealth and it’s the middle of the night, perhaps your normal provider is not available. 24/7 Or you may live in a rural area where the idea of trying to find an open all night urgent care is really not feasible. This is a potential option for you. I can’t give you advice, I can’t tell you what to do official disclaimer there. But do your own research about it and see if it’s a viable option for you. I actually had to use it in the middle of the night because I am still still trying to get over this viral food poisoning and unfortunately, still having some lingering complications from it. So at 330 in the morning, when I took ill yet again, it was really, really nice to be able to get on telehealth with a doctor and say, All right, here’s the journey I’ve been on so far trying to get over this mess. Here’s what’s going on now. Is this a new symptom? Is this something that we should be concerned about? Is it not and then being able to get some additional medication? Again, I can’t tell you what to do. But this might be something to add to your repertoire, especially again, as I said, if you’re living out somewhere, you don’t have access to a 24/7 Urgent Care. Maybe you feel like the nearest hospital is not exactly a place where you’re going to get the greatest of attention. I know that was the experience that I had recently. It’s something to keep in mind. Another tool for the tool belt so to speak. Over on Business Insider today, we find read the memo Redfin’s CEO sent employees announcing that the company is laying off 862 people. The little TLDR summary tells us Redfin is laying off 862 employees and shuttering its home flipping business. The company’s stock is trading at an all time low after the latest layoff announcement. Read the full memo that CEO Glenn Kelman sent to employees this morning. When we scroll down we find real estate brokerage Redfin is laying off another 862 employees and shuttering its home flipping business as the housing market continues to slump. CEO Glen Kelman announced this morning in a memo to employees. The latest layoff is expected to immediately impact approximately 13% of Redfin’s total workforce. However, 218 of the employees were offered other roles at the company as part of the wind down Kalman indicates in the memo, if none of these employees accept their new roles, the total layoff will impact about 16% of Redfin’s workforce. Since April 30, total employment at the company has fallen by more than 27%. The memo noted. Yeah, I don’t know how the home flippers are making it right now. I would say that, just like the realtors and the mortgage brokers, hopefully they were intelligent. With their money. Hopefully they put some back in a slush fund for a rainy day. Because, yeah, the kind of insane no money that they could make during the FOMO and the YOLO, where they could basically just go in, put in some new carpeting and a fresh coat of paint and then jack up the price by 200 grand as if those things would be justified by that kind of a price hike. No more. In fact, there’s a place that I want to describe to you that recently came back on the market where I am in the Midwest. And this is by no means like even the tip of the iceberg for how insane the price is got. In fact, it’s going to sound to you like it’s fairly reasonable, which is sad. The place went on the market last summer, during the heat of the FOMO and the Yolo. It was listed for $350,000. And I remember thinking, Okay, well that’s by no means the highest price I’ve seen, let’s check it out. So even though it’s being purported to the market as a farm and ranch, there’s no barn. There’s no stable, not even a loafing shed. I mean, there’s really nothing in terms of infrastructure for livestock. I don’t even think the property is fully fenced. So I mean, how are you going to keep cattle or horses from wandering off? You know, riddle me this. It was not a good fit for me and what I’m trying to accomplish with my expansion, and it sat on the market for a while not only because of that, but mainly because the house looked like a hot dumpster fire. In my opinion. It looked like it had been sorely neglected. And I think maybe it was a deal like probate or legal situations after someone died. Maybe it just kind of sat for a while unoccupied, or maybe they let some renters in who just straight up did not give a crap about anything but it it looked bad. I mean, to say that it looked like it was kind of falling in. That’s about where it was. So when you think about being asked to pay $350,000 for a place that looks like it’s about to fall apart in the next stiff wind. Maybe not such a great deal. Nevertheless, it’s sold to somebody in September. of last year for $5,000 over the asking price. Okay, so here we are approximately one year later, they already have back on the market. And they’re trying to get 440,000 for it at this point. Now have they remodeled it? Yes. And it’s very clear that they have the house looks much different from the way that it did last summer is the remodeling that they have done enough to justify a $100,000 price increase? That I don’t know, I would say I’m skeptical. But as far as infrastructure for animals goes, it still doesn’t have any kind of barn, they haven’t put in a loafing shed, they haven’t fenced the place, it looks like all they did was try to flip the house. But I don’t believe that the people who own it are actually house flippers, because there’s all kinds of like personal tchotchkes and family photos on the walls and the real estate photos. And you know that any kind of professional would not have that. I mean, it’s a very, very, very important rule of thumb that when you list your house, you have to de personalize and really make it so that that potential buyer can see themselves living in that property. They don’t want to see pictures of your damn kids. They don’t want to see magnets and appointment reminders and stuff all over the fridge, they really want as much of a clean slate as possible. So they can picture themselves living in that house. So I based on that, if nothing else, I don’t think these people were professional house flippers. So what happened here? Was there a layoff? Did someone get in here and lose their job? Did they get in and discovered that maybe it was not in the greatest area? I wonder about that, because I’m looking at some of the aerial photos that were taken in this latest listing some of the burned out to think about I want to put this. So some of the other real estate nearby, let’s just put it like that some of the other real estate nearby does not look very appetizing to me doesn’t look like if it was a dark and stormy night, it does not look like the kind of place that I would want to be. So I’m a little bit curious on that situation of maybe they’re really wanting to unload it, perhaps less for financial reasons. And maybe more because they got in there and realize that they’re living amongst the Hatfields and the McCoys to be determined, I guess, but I really bring that up, because it’s not a wonder that layoffs are happening in house flipping. Even if we’re talking about amateurs, people that just got in and thought Well, hell, you can sell anything right now. We’ll we’ll do this and make a quick buck. Not so much anymore. We go over to CNBC. We have headlines today, such as Elon Musk took over a struggling business with Twitter and has quickly made it worse. Elon Musk kills new official designation for big name tweeters. Tesla sinks to almost two year low on Musk stock sales and Twitter distraction. Yeah, you know, I’ve said before, I haven’t been on Twitter in years, I can’t even I mean, in terms of like, my personal friends, I can’t even think of anybody off the top of my head. That’s either on Twitter or active there anymore. I mean, it’s almost like what’s the point? midterm elections, several key races are too close to call leaving control of Congress up in the air. Yeah, I noticed something today is I was a milling around on the YouTubes. Some of the people in the prepper community that, oh, there’s going to be a red wave. In fact, it might be a red tidal wave, you better get out there and vote, this candidate is going to change it all this party is going to turn it around. They’re awfully quiet today. You know, I’ve said before, I don’t really think there’s a whole lot of difference between the two major parties that were asked to choose between. And I definitely don’t think there’s any particular politician or group of politicians that I would look at. And I would say, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I’m with them till the end. They’re honest. They’re forthright. They have such great moral fortitude. Yeah, I’m with them. No, I like to think that I live in the real world. So these people that were predicting some kind of red tidal wave and Oh, you better get out there and vote because this particular guy or this particular gal is going to turn it all around. awfully quiet today. Mina adds to a brutal year of layoffs and tech by Nancy Oh says he didn’t masterplan the FTX collapse. Now follows 500 points as midterms sell off picks up steam on Wednesday. Barclays playbook for the coming recession defensive stocks that could still gain 20% Huh, yeah, buy that dip. Go ahead and buy that dip. Keep playing that market. Not that I’m doing that because I am not. I can’t tell you what to do but I think it would be smart for you to be very careful. Bitcoin tumbles to its lowest in nearly two years. Solana drops another 40% So it sounds like cryptocurrency is just a big red hot mess. Over on the side panel for LinkedIn news, we find control of Congress hangs in the balance. X Mehta employees speak out. CEOs now freely saying recession. Yeah, they’ve been for really saying it behind closed doors for quite some time now. Salesforce confirms layoffs. Mehta lays off 11,000 Plus workers, Disney plus drains theme park profits. Musk dumps almost $4 billion of Tesla stock and tried to say that fast Tesla stock job seekers wish they had started sooner. Boy, when we click on job seekers wish they had started sooner we find job switchers like those trying to sell their homes may be starting to feel like their ship has sailed. The latest Harris poll shows more than 70% of Americans looking for a new role say that it’s more difficult than they expected. In fact, 72% say companies are ignoring applications and failing to schedule interviews as if they didn’t really want to hire anyone. Experts say staffing decisions are likely stalling in the face of rising interest rates even amid persistent tightness in the labor market. Uh huh. Yeah, time to dust him off and cue him up again. Sarah was right yet again. I have warned you about this for months. And I also on the episode that I released about cut corners trying to find a part time job. One of the things that I warned you about in that episode is what if that is not an option? What if there is no option to try to work a second job? What if there is no option to try to get a side hustle up and running before you need the money? If you haven’t already been thinking about these things? In my opinion, you’re behind the eight ball. And now we’re starting to see stories of that being released in mainstream news jobseekers wish they had started sooner? Well, I’m not really sure what to tell you. There’s no hopium that I can really offer here. I will say Are there still companies that our hiring and they are sincere about trying to fill their open positions? Yes. Yes, I would say more so for niche or specialized positions for general laborer, probably not. I also told you quite some time ago about the store cashier who confided in me that the place she wound up working was the winner by default because it was the only place that even bothered to call her back. Yet whenever I would try to sound the alarm on social media. I always have some idiot a troll a bot a mansplain or some idiot that would want to get all up in my sandbox about Morrow to PPP loans are over with now. I think if they got into now hiring sign up in that Winder there won’t hire somebody. Oh, right. Because you’re an expert on the job market. You’ve been in and out of it every day for over a decade, I’m sure of course. When we click on CEOs now freely saying recession, we find CEOs of major corporations have no doubt been thinking about the likelihood of a recession for some time. But now the actual word is being discussed more openly in public settings. The word recession was used in 42 earnings calls during the third quarter of 2021. According to market data. I want to read that to you again. The word recession was used in 42 earnings calls during the third quarter of 2021. So not q3 of this year, q3 of last year. According to market data, compared to the 165 times it’s come up so far this quarter. Companies are being cautious and expect the Feds rate hikes to slow business if they haven’t already. Even though other economic metrics such as GDP and jobs numbers are strong. Yet again, why I tell you in my opinion, if you wait to be told by some talking head on the TV or somebody out in the media, we are officially in a recession. The economic poopoo storm has officially begun. I feel like you’ve waited too like I cannot tell you what to do cannot give you advice but man if somebody is still not awake if They’re still goofing around with their head in the clouds. I genuinely feel sorry for them. Today it is Thursday, November 10. Starting to hear various and sundry theories and explanations along with plenty of crying in the coffee from people who were just so sure that we were going to have a red wave or maybe even a red tsunami. Oh, people in this party are all bad. But oh, people in this party are all good. And if we can just get some other set of career politicians in well, they will save the day they will give us a Hail Mary pass and everything will be fine. And it spans the gamut. Trump didn’t do enough. He did too much. It’s all his fault. He said the wrong things or he didn’t say enough. They didn’t get the right candidates up there. There’s also generational clickbait if you want that all the young people nowadays are just a bunch of damn commies. And they’re trying to elect a bunch of other commies. Oh, the Republicans shouldn’t have gotten so forceful about the abortion issue that turned a lot of people off. Oh, it’s this? Oh, it’s that. Some people are trying to backpedal now and say that they didn’t predict a red wave, even though they completely did. And now they’re trying to just, I guess do damage control to not look like their predictions didn’t pan out. But look, we all know the truth. I’m not gonna get into the thick of that. I’m politically agnostic on this podcast. The most I will tell you is what I’ve said before. I don’t see a whole lot of difference between the one and the other. I’m registered Independent. And that’s how I like it. Well, we’re on CNBC, we have headlines today, such as dow pops 1200 points, s&p 500 jumps 5% In biggest rally in two years after light inflation report. Fed officials welcome inflation news, but still see tighter policy ahead. So what this is in reference to is that the CPI report came out. And even though it’s not great, it’s supposedly getting better. Now bear in mind, it didn’t factor in energy costs are the cost of your groceries. So the necessity items that you need everyday to live well. They didn’t get factored in. But hey, people are doing great inflation is supposedly abating. I’d love to know if you’re seeing that in real time because I’m not. Mortgage rates fall sharply to under 7% as inflation eases. Hmm. Well, isn’t that interesting? If we zoom over for a moment to Politico, we find the article the Fed crash the housing market builders and banks want help. The byline reads the housing slump is the economy’s biggest casualty so far from a series of Federal Reserve rate hikes designed to tame inflation. Hmm, I told you that went to if I hadn’t already played the hype man. In this episode, I’d be coming back with him right now because I told you somebody would show up with their hat in their hand, saying we want some of that sweet taxpayer money. We need to be bailed out through no fault of our own. We need some of that sweet, sweet taxpayer money. Now here we are. Lobbyists are scrambling to get help from Washington to goose the housing market as demand tanks in response to rising interest rates and high prices. groups representing builders, realtors and lenders are urging Congress and the White House to intervene to spur more home construction and boost affordability. It’s an increasingly urgent plea with mortgage demand down more than 40% from a year ago and rates topping 7% For the first time in two decades. Advocates are leaning on lawmakers to act before the end of the year warning of gridlock with Republicans poised to win back at least one chamber of Congress in the midterms. The campaign is getting traction and the Biden administration officials at the White House Treasury Department and HUD are urging lawmakers to move huh? Yep, I really no offense to anybody listening, but I don’t want to bail out builders, realtors and lenders. I most especially don’t want to bail out realtors. Do you know how many of those eight holes sat and lied to me? Oh, we’re not in a housing bubble. Oh, the prices are only going to go up demand is only going to go up. It’s only going to get worse from here. Yeah, it’ll get worse for you. It’s not going to get worse for me because I didn’t sign on the dotted line for some bullcrap. And no, I don’t want to bail you out. Sorry, not sorry. Carl Icahn says he still thinks we’re in a bear market despite Thursday’s rally. I concur. Read Elon Musk’s first email to all Twitter employees remote work over company needs subscriptions. But BUMP BUMP BUMP. Again, how can we be surprised because Is this not his pattern? Under the TLDR key points we find Elon Musk said he is putting it In two, Twitter’s work from home forever policy, in his first email to the staff of the social network that he now owns, I’m going to button long enough to say I predicted that to these people who bought into the idea. Well, my workplace would just never. Hmm, sure they’ve said work from home forever. They’ve said we are committed to a work from anywhere policy, it’s never going to change. Well, things do change, management can change, ownership can change, corporate policies can change Hello, wake up. He also warned the company might not survive the downturn without significant subscription revenue. Additional C level executives have also resigned from Twitter, including C i So Lea Kisner. Yeah. I’ve said it before. And I will say it again, at the risk of being a broken record. I feel like naivete is coming at too high of a price. So if you get into this mindset of well, my company said or my manager thinks and and it it’s not just about work from home or work from anywhere. It can also be about layoffs. Oh, well, my manager said last week, he doesn’t think we’ll have layoffs. Okay. How sure? Do you feel that that person is telling you the truth. And on that note, I had an interesting conversation the other day with a friend of a friend. He’s more into blue collar type work and manages a blue collar staff. And when we were talking about things like roughing out a job loss survival plan, how do you make it through a layoff? What can you do to stand out If unemployment is quite high? And one of the things that he pointed out was, I feel like it’s always important and I always tell my crew like, don’t burn a bridge on your way out the door. If you have to go through a layoff don’t flip everybody off, don’t cuss people out, like always try to leave with some kind of dignity because they may call you back. You may need to use them for a reference at some point. Or they may call you back. They may say hey, we cut a little too close to the bone and we need the best crew members to come back. Do you want to be remembered as the person who flipped everybody off and told them to go to Hell f themselves, whatever, on the way out the door. So I feel like that’s worth mentioning. If you do have to go through a layoff or if there is some kind of change in policy. You know, do you want to be remembered as the person who flipped everybody off and ran out the door? Screaming expletives? Probably not. Over on Yahoo Finance, it’s a similar scene. Stocks stage blowout rally rise by most in two years after milder CPI print FTX fiasco puts crypto back into regulators crosshairs Fed officials say CPI a welcome relief but not time to pause hikes. Amazon loses $1 trillion in market cap looks towards cost cutting strategies. Well, I wonder what some of those might be. And speaking of FTX we have I’m sorry, I effed up Sam Bateman fried needs $4 billion fast. Why don’t want to bail them out either? No, thanks. grocery prices jumped 12.4% year over year. I bet it’s more than that. Honestly. 12.4% Maybe the most anybody’s willing to admit to add an article but you know, when you if you have receipts, you know, you can go back and look at what you were paying for something in 2018 2019 and then compare it to what you’re paying now. It’s obscene. It really is. On the side panel for LinkedIn, we have Musk tells Twitter staff to RTO X muda employees respond to layoffs. Amazon eyes unprofitable units says the Wall Street Journal hmm. Yeah. Retailers hit brakes on fast delivery. Wall Street job cuts gain momentum. Bitcoin sinks on FTX collapse. Yeah, yeah. But hey, all those economists, economists in air quotes who told us that we would not see mass layoffs in q4. I kind of think a lot of the reports that we’re getting that are being used to pop pop up the stock market today. Oh, CPI is improved. People are doing great. We’re turning it around. I think that’s more hot air and hopium. Two, I put it in the same bucket, as we won’t see mass layoffs in q4. Right, of course. Wow. That’s all I can say right now. It’s just wow. Today it is Friday, November 11. on CNBC, we had Have headlines such as Disney plans targeted hiring freeze and job cuts according to memo seems to be going around Washington turns up heat on crypto darling Sam Venkman fried following FTX bankruptcy Elon Musk is now working out of Twitter headquarters thanks employees for long hours well if he’s gonna demand everybody else are to but remember that CEO who got so upset and butthurt about employees being over employed. Well, what about Elon other companies? Why is it okay for presidents and CEOs to have multiple ventures but if an ordinary common person doesn’t well, they’re terrible. They’re a thief. They’re doing something wrong and terrible rules for the not for me. NASDAQ adds 1.9% s&p 500 closes nearly 1% higher and not just best week since June. Stock market rally will be put to test and week ahead after yields fall and tech surges. Over on Yahoo Finance we find s&p 500 Nasdaq build on biggest stock rally since 2020. US stocks extended this week’s dramatic ascent. Language here this week’s dramatic ascent on Friday after declaration and CPI inflation data ignited the most intense rally on Wall Street since early 2020. FTS collapse is a black swan event. Those also seem to be going around, don’t they? Disney reportedly plans hiring freeze and job cuts. Many layoffs stunned workers, I thought I’d be clear. And there’s the rub. I want to click on that and read a little bit of it for you now. At the start of this week, a technical recruiter at meta thought layoffs wouldn’t touch her. She told Yahoo Finance, she performed well at work always meeting or exceeding expectations at a company that had prioritized attracting engineering talent for years. She was also in her third trimester of pregnancy. Until yesterday, I thought I’d be clear in this layoff she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, I didn’t think these layoffs would be to the scale that they are or that I would be
affected. But by 8:
45am, Eastern Time, she says she was locked out of her computer with access only to her work email. I tried to go look at benefits. The recruiter said I typed it in our search bar and it wouldn’t let me in saying I needed internal access. Yahoo Finance spoke to three men employees who lost their jobs this week, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity over concerns that coming forward might affect their future prospects or benefits. They all provide a documentation of their employment at the company and quote, unfortunately, I think that that kind of attitude, that kind of perspective, and please understand I’m not trying to victim blame anyone here. What I’m saying to you, is that that kind of attitude, that kind of perspective is dangerous, in my opinion. Well, okay, there might be layoffs, but it won’t be big. Okay, they might cut pretty deep, but they won’t cut that date. And they might get rid of the guy down the hall. And he’s kind of a goofball. Nobody likes him anyway, but they’ll keep me. I really think to go back to that John Steinbeck quote about temporarily embarrassed millionaires. I think that’s what’s going to happen to a lot of people who are working during this downturn. Well, it’ll happen to somebody else, but it won’t happen to me. I’ll be able to make it I’m a good producer. I’m a good performer. Everything’s gonna be all right. I mean, hell, the media gives me hope em all the time. Take that attitude at your own risk, in my opinion. Over on the side panel for LinkedIn news, we find slowing inflation boost bonds. Well, I hope that the people on Wall Street have a good time. I hope they’re able to get their money out one more time. tech CEOs say sorry for cuts. Yeah, okay. fake accounts trip up Twitter blue. Payroll rules reign in digital nomads, yet again, who didn’t see that coming. I published an article earlier today about Elon Musk and the demand for RTO they took away our work from home forever or work from anywhere forever policy. They can do that. Just because somebody in corporate America says this is going to be our policy forever and ever. Amen. We will ever change it looks skeptically into the microphone. Really? Really? Hotel demand is back but not upkeep. Ooh, that sounds kind of scary. Gap turns to Amazon for sales bump. Yep. Listen, guys. Stay safe, stay sane. I agree with Suze Orman about imagine you’re already laid off and wargame out your strategy. Do not get into this idea whether it’s American exceptionalism or individual access journalism. That would just never happen in America. We’d never have another Great Depression. We won’t see any more mass layoffs. Oh, I wouldn’t be laid off. I wouldn’t be let go. Don’t be too cocky. And don’t be too sure. These fat cats they’re going to do whatever they feel is best for their bottom line. I mean remember the deal about meta after they had the layoff? The stock went up. They don’t answer to us. The answer to the investors the Board of Directors the fat cats they don’t answer to us. Take care of yourselves. I will see you in the next episode.
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