Saturday Broadcast 58

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

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in today it is Monday, July 24. Straight away, I will have my slice of humble pie. And I will admit I was incorrect. In the last Saturday broadcast, I was talking about how I just did not think masses of people were going to show up at Barbenheimer. And that more than likely, we would hear reports that the box office did not go as well as people had hoped and I was flat out wrong. According to mainstream media, I was wrong. People did in fact, turnout mega big time for Barbenheimer. I don’t get it. I don’t get the appeal. I don’t get why somebody would want to spend that kind of money. But here we go. Even on LinkedIn, this is being reported Barbenheimer rolls the box office. In this we read Barbie and Oppenheimer blew past box office records and made history during their debut weekend. The dual film release grossed about $302 million in North America making it the fourth biggest weekend effort in US box office history. According to analytics company comScore. Universal Pictures Oppenheimer brought in 81 million in ticket sales. Meanwhile, Warner Brothers Barbie generated about 155 million becoming the weekend’s top selling film in North America. Wow. I mean, it is funny that more people decided to go see Barbie than Oppenheimer. That sort of is an interesting microcosm about the culture right now. But still, I’m like, who does that? At our local theater, the movie theater that’s closest to us. The price right now for an adult ticket is 11 bucks. And the price for a child ticket is 850. But they their definition of child is anybody 11 or younger. So if your kid is 12, even though they’re still clearly a minor, they’re still clearly a child. At that age, the movie theater says no, they have to pay for an adult ticket price. So you think about just going to see one of those movies that can easily be a $40 proposition easily. That’s not counting snacks drinks, any of that. If you decide to have the Barbenheimer weekend, it can easily be an $80 proposition. And you’re going to be at the theater for so long. Yes, people are going to want at minimum a bottle of water. That’s like $5 at the movie theater now. I saw a news report earlier this morning that there was some theater or theater chain that was selling all sorts of Barbie merchandise to tie in with the movie. And they had a Barbie car that they were selling for $65 at this theater. And again, I have a headache sitting and thinking like who does that? Right now, in a time where people are doing Buy now pay later for groceries, who in the hell is going to go into a movie theater and buy a $65? Barbie car? Okay, so then you think about you’ve dropped 80 bucks on the tickets, not to mention whatever you got for your concessions. And then you’re going to add to the situation by spending 65 bucks on a frequent Barbie car as a souvenir of the experience. I kind of cannot with that. I guess I overestimated people’s desire to save money and to get through this. I guess I did. And that’s why I recorded an episode before called some people are not going to make it because in my opinion, you are going to have people that put their heads up their backsides and they don’t want to think about a recession. They don’t want to think about the job market. They don’t want to imagine that anything might happen in their world until it actually does happen to them. I’m reading Morgan Housel ‘s book the psychology of money. I’m a little more than halfway through it at this point. And it’s an interesting book. I cannot say that I agree with everything. He writes wholesale. I don’t. But he does make some interesting points. And in one of the chapters of this book, he points out that most of the people buying lottery tickets fall into the low income category. And they spend over $400 per year on lottery tickets, but then at the same time, they don’t have $400 to cover an emergency expense. Okay, and then juxtapose that with people going to see Barbenheimer this weekend, and blowing that kind of money on movies a one off experience.

Buy now pay later for groceries on one hand, but then also let’s go blow money on Barbenheimer. I don’t get it, I do not get it. On an unrelated note, let’s go over a market watch today we find. Here’s how worried middle income Americans are about inflation. In this we read more middle income Americans complained that inflation kept them from saving as much money in the second quarter than in the prior quarter, as high prices are taking a bite out of wallets in 2023, according to a new survey released by Santander USA. Despite these concerns, Americans remain optimistic about their economic prospects. While more people said they expect to move their money to take advantage of higher interest paying products such as certificates of deposits or higher yielding money market accounts. Customers also remain loyal to their respective banks, despite Iran on deposits that caused the demise of Silicon Valley Bank Signature Bank and first republic late in the first quarter and into the second quarter of this year. 73% of middle class Americans said they were unable to save as much as a result of inflation up from 67% in the first quarter, and a separate question 68% said they have made significant cuts to their household spending to adjust for inflation up from 60% in the first quarter and quote, okay. Do I think people have made significant cuts to the household spending? Yes, I don’t know how you could. But again, I’m trying to reconcile this information with people going to see BB and hire more people getting FOMO and Yolo. And saying screw it, we’re going to take the kids to Disney, we’re going to take the kids on vacation, because a lot of times adults will do whatever it is they want to do. But then they they blame it on the kids. Well, the kids have to have this, the kids are going to be butthurt and upset if we don’t go it’s like, what do you really want to be paying for that vacation five years from now on a freaking credit card? I don’t I don’t get it. I don’t get it. Also, in this article from MarketWatch, we find despite increased concern over inflation, consumers remain resilient as the US job market remained strong. Wow. Wow, wow, we always have to give that little bump of hopium, don’t we? I’m just I’m sitting here and I’m rubbing my third eye because I’m like, what is happening? What is happening? By Buy now pay later for groceries, we’re having to cut down we’re having to really think about inflation. But then at the same time, we’re going to go and blow money on Barbenheimer. Oh, and we trust our banks to we’re going to remain loyal to the banks, despite a run on deposits. Nothing to see here. People move along with long. I really you know, there are philosophical trains of thought right now, this is gonna sound so bleak. And I can’t help it. But there are philosophical trains of thought right now that people have actually started to devolve. And I see information like this. And I start to wonder if it is a true what what is going on? With people trying to get somebody to prep? Do you have two or three weeks of emergency food water in the event of a grid down situation? A tornado or hurricane? An earthquake? If you didn’t have electricity for two to three weeks? Could you handle that? Could you survive? Trying to get people to just prepare for a basic emergency. I’m not talking about doomsday Armageddon, zombie apocalypse, the end times any of that I’m not talking about doomsday prepping. I’m talking about emergency preparedness. Trying to get people to think ahead and plan for a possibility like that feels like pulling teeth. But sure, let’s go blow 80 bucks this weekend to see Barban hyper. Yeah, there’s some people that are just not going to make it. They’re not. I know that sounds really sour and dour. I wish that it didn’t. I’m just giving you the truth as I see it. Also on LinkedIn Today we find office occupancy is creeping back up. Well, quelle surprise, this could be the year offices start looking like they did pre pandemic Castle systems. A security company tracking key card swipes in offices in the 10 largest US metro areas found that offices hit 49.1% occupancy the week ending July 12. One week in early June even saw 50% occupancy marking the first time post pandemic offices have been half full. Those figures have been inching up steadily since the start of 2022. Interesting. I wonder how things will look by fall because we’re still in the summer and we’re still in the dog days of summer. Some people are going to be using their PTO whether they just want to have a staycation they want to have a few days off to hang out at the house with the kids or to get away from their boss. And then some people are going to do the FOMO and YOLO and oh, the kids are going to be upset if we don’t take a big expensive vacation. Like, why are you letting your kids run the damn household anyway, but I digress. I think after we get out of the summer months, when we get into the fall before we start to get into that No Man’s Land period, November, December, Thanksgiving through middle January. It’ll be interesting to see what the office occupancy rates look like at that point in time. Because fewer people are going on vacation. Fewer people are having a staycation going swimming or going out to the lake. So I think it will be interesting to see what it looks like by that point in time. Also on LinkedIn, today, we find Twitter rebrands as x. Which makes me think of the Joker from the 1989 Batman where he’s like, What have you been using Brand X? Twitter rebrands as X. Okay. That sounds a little peculiar to me. But sure, why not? We live in very weird times. C suite base salaries take a hit. Well, this key for college entry. Oh, really? You don’t say? US heatwave to head north and east? Most of us missing out on AI boom. I don’t think it’ll be that way forever. But hey, I was wrong about Barban Heimer. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah, this is one where I’m just gonna have to be like Scrooge all retire to bed low. Today, and it’s Tuesday, July 25. Over on CNBC, we find General Motors raises full year guidance announces deeper cost cutting. And one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about this article is because I feel like it’s a bit of a microcosm of what we’re seeing in the media these days. People are doing great, resilient economy, but robust labor market. Inflation is cooling off. Just good news all the way around. If you still think a recession is going on, or it’s coming, well, you’re just an idiot, because churn and burn and doing great. Oh, but now we’re still going to continue to cut costs. We’re still going to continue to have layoffs, but you’re supposed to ignore anything. That doesn’t cause you to smoke hot air and help you. Okay, great. Got it. And the TLDR key points we find General Motors is raising its 2023 guidance for a second time this year after the automaker reported second quarter results Tuesday that were up sharply year over year. The Detroit automaker also said it is increasing cost cutting measures through next year and now plans to cut $3 billion in expenditures compared with previous guidance of $2 billion. Jams earnings included an unexpected $792 million charge for new commercial agreements between GM and LG. In the meat of the article, we find GM CFO Paul Jacobson said the reductions will include sales and marketing spending, salary, employment and other costs. GM shares were initially up in pre market trading following the results. But we’re down nearly 3% just after the market opening in quote will include sales and marketing spending, salary employment and the nebulous term other costs. Well, what do you think salary employment means? If they’re going to cut costs there, it means jobs.

You’re supposed to think that we’re still in this robust labor market. People are doing great all these open jobs for every one unemployed person if someone’s unemployed. Well, it’s just their own fault. Wake up seriously. Over on Yahoo Finance, we find JP Morgan some reasons to be bearish on the red hot stock market. Now may be an opportune time for exuberant investors to ring the register strategist at JP Morgan led by Marco Kalon. Avec Warren in a new note, I’m laughing because my dog is staring a hole through my head sorry, strategist at JP Morgan led by Marco colonic Warren and a new note that euphoric markets are being fueled mostly by hype around AI tech, and excitement around slowing inflation. So that at least gives us an interesting theory. Like what is being used to papier mache over the cracks in the foundation? Is it hype around AI and excitement about this supposedly slowing inflation? I don’t know. But it gives us a couple of possible theories to look at. We also find several unwelcome realities are lost in the current upbeat market narrative, at least in the minds of JP Morgan’s number crunchers. We remain of the view that the delayed impact of the global interest rates shock real estate consumer credit, quantitative tightening and liquidity etc. steady erosion of consumer savings and post COVID pent up demand and deeply troubling global geopolitical context will result in market declines and reemergence of market volatility, wrote the closely followed call on of it. He added we acknowledged that we cannot time this inflection near term, but there are no data points that would prompt us to change our methodology or conclusions and quote, there’s a lot a lot going on there. Delayed impact of global interest rate shock, erosion of consumer savings and the post COVID pent up demand, geopolitical issues, market declines and market volatility. I’m inclined to think that this analysis probably has more merit to it than the hot air and hopium crowd telling you there is no recession there will be no recession and people are doing great. Also on Yahoo Finance by way of Bloomberg we find deep recession two fourths full percentage point fed cut double line warts. Market should brace for a deep US recession that warrants a dramatic one point interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve more than double line capitals Jeffrey Sherman. It’s a bold call based on weakening economic data that makes a recession probable next year for Sherman coming even as the Fed is expected to hike further this week. money markets are already betting on a total 130 basis points of Fed cuts. Wow. In 2024, wow. But Sherman thinks policymakers will end up being slow to act and then have to unleash the biggest cuts since the pandemic struck. Maybe so here we go. This is another potential theory for us to like a feather in our cap another potential theory for us to consider. Will there wind up being cuts in 2024 when we go back to quantitative easing and the age of free money and the Fed printing up dollars and handing them out like candy, maybe to be determined this is about one person’s theory. A multitude of economic indicators we look at our flashing either morning or recessionary signals said Sherman, Deputy Chief Investment Officer at asset manager double line in an interview by the time they cut it will be 100 basis points. Sherman known for his eponymous bond gauge of interest rate risk is preparing for this outcome by seeking the safety of long maturity government bonds. He is buying 10 year and 30 year treasuries seeing no problem if the Fed raises rates further this week, as he judges long dated yields to have peaked in quote. What is yet to come? I don’t know. I am still perplexed, I guess and I probably shouldn’t be. But I’m still perplexed at the number of people wasting their money on Barbenheimer. That’s just my opinion. And I could be wrong. Maybe you go and you find it to be life changing life altering cinema but wasting their money on Barbenheimer. And listening to hot air and hopium on social media people are doing great Nothing to see here. And it’s like On what planet Okay, and on that note, something popped up earlier today on my LinkedIn notifications. And this reads lengthy job searches torment even the most patient job seeker. The longer the hunt, the less control jobseekers seem to have to stay motivated Career Coach Caroline Kastri on recommend several strategies. First, ask the hiring company for details on their process. They often have a pre planned approach. Also make sure you continue to talk with other potential employers weird things can derail what seemed to be a locked in job. Also view interviewing or talking with various companies as networking. Through enduring though excuse me though enduring a slog can be frustrating in the near term, these relationships may be beneficial later. Yeah. Okay. So about that, can you imagine? Let’s go back in our minds to like 2021 When the great resignation really was in full swing, can you imagine seeing something like that about lengthy job searches and you just got to hang in there. It can be like enduring a slog, but you just got to accentuate the positives. No, hell no. You would not have seen anything like that in 2021. That would have been like in the housing market. If there had been an article published about how it’s a buyers market and sellers just need to back the hell off. No, would not have happened if you were house hunting in 2021, as I’ve said before, realtors were snobby. And sellers were snobby. And they acted like if you didn’t show up with 100 grand over asking price and a bouquet of roses and a steak dinner well fu it was most assuredly not a buyers market. And during the Great resignation when that actually was in full swing, and it actually was a candidate driven market. You would not have seen an article like this on LinkedIn about lengthy job searches. This is telling you something. And to me, it’s like a tale of two cities. On the one hand, it’s like, hey, churn and burn and doing great. Now, GM is going to continue to cut costs, and they’re going to do so $1 billion more than they had originally planned on, and there’s gonna be more layoffs. But hey, people are doing great, robust labor market now lengthy job searches, it’s gonna feel like a slog, you’re gonna have difficulty staying motivated, because you may be in for an extended job hunt, but somehow 3.6% unemployment rate to open jobs for every one unemployed person. Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t make any sense to me. The only way that I can make that make sense is if I assume one of those narratives is fake as hell. So only way I can make heads or tails of it. Also on LinkedIn, we find banks told to revise deposit data. Dozens of banks have had to revise the amount of uninsured deposits they hold after a regulatory agency discovered discrepancies in their reporting. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, which ensures or the FDIC, which insures deposits and supervises bank said that some of the lenders that incorrectly excluded certain deposits, following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March, regulators have raised the level of review into uninsured deposits, which customers had rushed to reclaim. According to s&p global 55, banks had to restate their reports to the FDIC, including Bank of America and Huntington Bank shares and quote, hmm, but you know, we’ve heard commentators no need to even rehash who I’m talking about. But we’ve heard commentators say, this is not about your local bank. What happened in Silicon Valley play? There, just play? Those were venture capitalists high risk, high reward. This is not the same scenario as your local, good old fashioned bank, where grandma has her CD and Timmy keeps his paper out money. Nothing. Again, nothing to see here. People move along, move on. And if you worry about it, well, that makes you an idiot. You’re just worrying yourself over nothing. Okay. Yeah, right. Also on LinkedIn, we find Austin’s RTO rates are falling. I’m going to take a wild guess that if we’re seeing an article like this, it’s sort of perhaps maybe suggesting the idea that if Austin’s RTO, rates are falling, that means RTO is losing. That means work from home. It’s coming back, it’s rallying back. Yeah, okay. Austinites no longer lead the nation when it comes to RTO. Once the poster city for employees getting back to offices, numbers have started to tail off, reports Bloomberg citing Castle systems data, the city which houses several tech giants had a 57 office occupancy rate last week compared to 68%. In early March, what’s at play? Experts say the trend is shifting amid extreme heat, summer holidays and people opting for flexibility. Office vacancy has reached 25% in the second quarter, yet it’s business as usual for real estate. There’s 6.2 million square feet of office space being constructed in downtown Austin and quote, why would that be?

Why would corporate real estate be constructing 6.2 million square feet of office space? If they assume that RTO is losing and Austin? That makes no sense. Again, the only way you can make it make sense is if you assume one part of the narrative is untrue. Summer has the tendency anyway to be a little bit dicey. You’ve got people taking PTO, you’ve got people going out on vacation and some offices as a perk, I’m using perk and air quotes here will allow individuals to leave early or to have work from home Fridays or to have some kind of summertime hours that they keep. I did a project once for a company that they would work Monday through Thursday, from eight to five and then Friday was eight to noon. So there, if you went to their office or you drove by their office on a Friday afternoon, it was empty. This is not completely uncommon. I feel like the danger here is somebody glosses over this article and they say oh well RTO is losing look at Austin. Therefore I don’t need to construct an RTO survival plan. I can sit back and assume that RTO is never going to happen to me because that’s what I want to assume. We have to be really careful with confirmation bias. I finished reading Morgan Housel his book The Psychology of money, and it’s interesting he makes some Very good points. Now I felt like it was good food for thought. And one point he talks about something like paranoid optimism, where it’s like, you generally have an optimistic, optimistic outlook. But at the same time, you’re paranoid about things that could go wrong. Assume your plan is not going to go according to plan and have a plan B or C to go along with it. In case it doesn’t. And I agree with that, where I think I was sort of put off by the book was this idea of optimism sounds like it’s trying to sell you something. Whereas pessimism sounds smart. But you really shouldn’t be a pessimist. Because if you zoom out, and you look at the economy over the past 200 years, everything’s gonna be okay. Things are steadily getting better, and everything’s gonna be okay. And I’m like that, that feels like a very contrived and deliberate message to me. I think it depends on what socio economic bracket you find yourselves in. Because you read a book like squeezed by Elissa court, and you hear these real stories of people getting squeezed out of the middle class down into the lower class or the working poor. You read about people who got wiped the hell out during the Great Recession, and they never recovered. And it’s like, well, it’s easy to make a broad brushstroke, and say, well, everything is getting better. You know, if you’re a white, Anglo Saxon, Protestant, male, everything’s getting better. Let’s look at the economy over the course of 200 years, which is longer than a person’s lifetime. By the way, everything people are doing great look at how much better life is. Yeah, I mean, I guess it’s better if you’re not one of the people that got steamrolled. If you’re not somebody that’s disenfranchised. Hmm, I would just if it were me, I don’t give you advice. And I don’t tell you what to do. But if it were me, I just would not want to get caught with my pants down and an economic downturn, I just would. Last night, there was some kind of water main break or water line problem further up the road from us. I’m not completely sure why it was. But it’s like, Oh, no. What a terrible time. There’s never a great time for that to happen anyway. But it was like right at that time of the day where people are getting home from work. And if you’ve been working outside all day, take a shower. People are trying to prepare dinner. And I’m like, no, no, I don’t want to spend the night without water. It’s a good reminder of like, do you have that emergency preparedness in place? Do you have some bottled water, some jugs of water? I know sometimes preppers get ultra focused on water filtration. Do you have some way of cleaning water in a grid down situation? In a situation like what I’m talking about where there’s a water line break and they’re going to shut the water off for a period of hours to get it fixed? Do you have bottled water to drink? You have something that you can wash hands brush teeth with? Do you have food that maybe doesn’t require any kind of water or preparation, you can just nuke it in the microwave or open it out of a package and eat it. It’s not even add water and stir. It’s something that you can eat just exactly as it is. We tend not to think about those things until we’re already in the moment and it’s too late to meaningfully prepare. I draw the line out. I feel like and this is just my opinion and it could be wrong but I feel like the mainstream media is really bread crumbing people and gaslighting people and obfuscating the truth about what’s actually happening in the day to day economy. What is really happening to working class and working poor people. I go back to Jared a Brock’s fantastic article about how the hyper elites are jonesing for a recession because they want to pick up your assets on the cheap. You’re going to make it that much easier for them to mercilessly financially right view if you don’t prepare. Today, it is Wednesday, July 26. The main headline everywhere you look today is about the fed on CNBC we find fed approves hike that takes interest rates to highest level in more than 22 years. Dow is little changed as fed hikes rates again, the Dow is writing its longest winning streak since 2017. In a bit of good news, if you ask me. We also find high school shop class is back and it’s here to fill the trade skills gap. I think that’s wonderful. I think more people should have some basic mechanical and electrical skills. And I think if people decide college is not for me, I would rather go to vo tech and learn to trade more power to them. Over on Yahoo Finance we find Fed raises interest rates to highest since 2001. In the byline. The Federal Reserve raised rates by point two 5% on Wednesday resuming its aggressive rate hiking campaign in an effort to bring inflation back to its 2% target. Stocks drift after Fed decision and Powell comments. Inflation fight Fed not likely to back off for 2% goal says former Fed President Feds rate hike is a good compromise between hogs and doves strategist says Okay, in another interesting tidbit, this morning, I watched one of Linnet xanes recent videos, shifting your bank accounts to fed now without your knowledge, I will drop a link to it. If you are interested in digital currency, if you want to contemplate what is yet to come, I would recommend that you watch that video because she has a real life letter with some true examples that apparently one of her clients had sent to her some correspondence that came directly from their bank. And one of the things that she points out in the video is that these things happen behind the scenes and they happen slowly, she uses the analogy of a spider crafting its web. By the time you really wake up and realize, whoa, things are different. Wow, things have changed. It’s too late to do anything about it. I agree. And more specifically, I agree as it comes to the job market. That’s my bill, whether that’s my area of expertise. By the time that somebody comes out, if it ever happens at this point, day by day, I grow more skeptical, because it’s like, we just keep getting hot air and hopium. In my opinion, it’s very difficult to find anybody in a mainstream media news or saying, hey, wait a minute, Whoa, let’s all slow down here. Let’s not have excessive celebration. That’s one of the things in Morgan Housel book, The Psychology of money, where I was like, because his theory is that optimism doesn’t sell well, because it seems like it’s somebody trying to sell you something. Whereas pessimism seems smart. And his thesis is that pessimism is easy to get published. And I’m sitting out here going, Ah, are you sure about that? Because to me, it actually seems like it’s the opposite. It’s easier to put out toxic positivity, toxic optimism, toxic gratitude. And anybody who doesn’t go along with sunshine and rainbows is just a Debbie Downer or a gloom and doom or so at this point. I’m skeptical that we’re ever going to see a politician or a talking head right out in the media and say,

Okay, we’re in a recession now. It has officially begun. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe whatever administration takes over next, we’ll say we’re in a recession, but it’s not our fault. It’s the fault of the people who were here before, I don’t know. But day by day, the more that I hear about people spending money to go to Barbenheimer or FOMO and Yolo and credit cards or I see some do to poop house where someone has managed to make an offer on a grossly overpriced place for like a seven or 8% interest rate. I’m like, man, we’re effed. We are just effed. So I agree with Lynette’s idea. By the time that things really it becomes apparent that we’re in a poop storm. By the time that your rights get taken away. It’s too late. You have waited too late to do anything meaningful to prepare as it relates to the job market more specifically, if you don’t have your RTO Survival Plan roughed out, if you don’t have a job loss Survival Plan roughed out if you want to LARP and play pretend that the great resignation is still going strong and you can just hippity hop across the market forever. Good luck to you. Because in my opinion, you’re going to need some luck. They say that God looks out after fools. Well, I maybe. Maybe so you better hope that’s the case. If you decide to play this economic downturn, like a full on medium earlier, I saw an article The 2023 Dreadful surge in bankruptcy filings. And the very first line is they are not telling the public exactly what is happening. But these charts don’t lie. And I highlighted it and said yeah, I feel extremely confident that the public is not being told exactly what’s happening. I feel pretty confident about that. It’s like you’re supposed to ignore bankruptcy filings. You’re supposed to ignore layoffs. You’re supposed to ignore companies that are like we have to tighten the belt companies that are going out of business, the mom and pop shops that are going under that you don’t hear about on the nightly news. So that’s where I I just I completely diverge from this idea of pessimism so you can easily get published you can get a lot of attention if you sound like a pessimist, but really you should just be optimistic about everything. And it’s certainly your choice if you decide to do that. I would just say in my opinion, naivete comes at a very high cost.

Are you looking for more? Don’t forget you can find Sara on her blogs at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And at SaraCausey.com. You can also read her content on Medium and Substack. On with the show.

Today it is Thursday, July 27. The news today is a weird, mixed bag of tricks. It seems to me that the mainstream media has been smoking a very interesting and strong strain of hopium. Over on CNBC we find s&p 500 rises after strong GDP data and meta earnings. Wall Street economists say rate hikes are over even if the Fed won’t admit it. GDP grew at a 2.4% pace in the second quarter topping expectations despite recession calls. Wow. People are doing good the economy is resilient. Nothing to see here. People move along, move along. But like maker Anheuser Busch to layoff hundreds of corporate staff but don’t pay any attention to that people are doing great. Over on Yahoo Finance, it’s a similar scene. US economy grows at a faster pace than expected in q2 in the byline. The US economy grew faster than economists expected in the second quarter. The data adds to signs that the threat of a recession has faded. Oh, imagine the heavens parting the sunshine is coming out. Angels are struggling on harps with their fluffy white wings. And all is right with the world again. tech stocks lead gains as Mehta rallies, fed hopes rise. Mortgage rates again edged closer to 7% after Feds latest hike. But hey, hey, here’s a little bit more hoping for you. On that note, if you were looking at the market going holy smokes Batman, there’s no way I would even think about trying to get in the middle of housing right now with mortgage rates being So hi, guess what? Over on market watch today, we learned the housing recession is over real estate group says as Pending Home Sales tick up for the first time in four months. Who are these people you might ask? Well, I’m glad you did ask. The recovery has not taken place. But the housing recession is over. Lawrence Yun of the National Association of REALTORS says oh, okay, so according to the National Association of Realtors, who presumably would have a vested interest in you being part of the real estate market, according to them, the housing recession is over. A full blown recovery has not yet taken place. But the housing recession is over. So you just get out there with a 789 percent mortgage and you just go right ahead and you dive in. People are doing great the GDP is up resilient economy. Even on the side pillar for LinkedIn, we find GDP growth speeds up to 2.4%. The US economy expanded at an estimated 2.4% annualized pace in the second quarter confounding expectations for a slowdown. stronger consumer spending amid slowing inflation and a tight labor market helped to propel gross domestic product growth. From April to June the Commerce Department reported Thursday. Also supporting expansion was an increase in business investment with equipment purchases surging at a 10.8% rate the most in over a year. economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast GDP would grow an annualized 1.8% In the period after 2% In the first quarter. The Federal Reserve which raised interest rates by a quarter point Wednesday said staff economists are no longer forecasting a recession for this year. I’m gonna read that for you again. The Federal Reserve which raised interest rates by a quarter point Wednesday said IT staff economists are no longer forecasting a recession for this year. A recent survey by the National Association for Business Economics shows the majority of respondents see the likelihood of the US entering a recession in the next 12 months at 50% or less in quote. Again, the heavens have opened up the sun is shining. Angels are struggling on harps. There is no recession. We’re not in a recession. Now. We haven’t been and the mysterious recession that was going to rise from the Miss like Brigadoon. It’s not even coming anymore. The housing recession is over just get out there and buy you a house. And if you’re worried about your bank, well don’t be because your local bank that has Timmies paper route money and grandma’s $50 certificate of deposit, it is fine doing just fine. There are people who believe that it’s hard for me to even say it sarcastically. But there are people who believe that meanwhile, we also have news that India is going to put a rice export ban to make sure that they have it for themselves. ofs at reasonable prices. There’s also word coming out and this is on mainstream media. The story about India’s rice export ban can be found on the economist, the story I’m about to tell you can be found on the Wall Street Journal. So to be clear, I’m not talking about fringe, right fringe left outlets nobody ever heard of. The Wall Street Journal is also talking about Biden’s dilemma fight inflation or protect unions, because they’re talking about putting a tariff on steel, that allegedly is supposed to help steel workers keep their jobs, but it will lead to higher prices of canned food. long pause there so you can think about that. If canned food has been an integral part of prepping or not even prepping, it’s just an integral part of how you keep your family fed. How is that going to impact you? If there’s a shortage of rice, I mean, rice is definitely a staple item. I know some people are not big proponents of eating it because we do live in a time of low carbs. Carbs are the devil if you want to cut weight fast, get rid of things like rice and bread and pasta, I get it. But things like beans and rice are very typically easily to obtain low cost items that you can have on hand. They’re the types of foods that can get you through a struggle. If you’re if you’re needing to make some struggle meals because there’s not much food available to you, beans and rice will help you get through it. If you’re thinking about long term food storage, in the event of a poop hits the fan scenario, I want to have some food put back beans and rice will keep for a very long time as long as you store them properly. But the thing of it is, if you say anything about the global food supply, you say anything about scarcity, well, then you’re just a conspiracy theorist, you’re just some wing nut, you probably believe the moon is made out of cheese. I just then this is this is just my opinion. It’s just my theorizing, it could be wrong. I pay attention to the weather, the soil conditions, the difficulty, even if you were using non GMO, heirloom seeds. If you’re planting them in poor quality soil, or you’ve got a variety of environmental factors beyond your control, it’s getting harder and harder to have the good old fashioned backyard family garden. I’ve talked before about remembering my great grandmother’s garden after they downsized. And she just had like a rudimentary backyard garden not acres and acres of produce. But just a simple backyard garden, the amount of food that we would pull out of that garden was crazy. I don’t know if you could have anything like that now, it would depend on where you lived and what the environmental factors were like. But that’s my point. Like here in the Midwest, just being able to fill up a patch of land, put some basic soil amendments into it, be able to water it and take care of it and have enough food to really make it through the summer. And plus some have some that you’re gonna pressure can or preserve. It is more difficult than I have ever seen it. And I have a green thumb. I’m a good gardener. But man, it’s tough. I told you our garden last year, three jars of summer squash to put on the shelf. That was it. If we had been dependent on that to not starve, we would have been royally screwed. The corn burned up during the drought. It was desiccated and black. It just it just died. It was so crazy. And then now this year, we’re on the opposite side of the spectrum because we have had so much rain and humidity. The Midwest has felt like the Gulf Coast or swamp land. It’s weird. So you have food that has molded that has rotted like the melons have gotten belly rot on them from just sitting on wet earth. It’s like you can’t win for losing sometimes. So I’m just I’m thinking out loud here just opining for your entertainment only. In the situation where you can’t really reliably grow your own food. You typically turn to things like beans and rice and canned goods. If those things are not readily available, or they become cost prohibitive, then what do you do? Again, I’m just I’m asking the question out loud. It seems to me that that’s a precarious position to be in. Because the more that you can be. Let me let me really think about how I want to say this, the fewer resources that you have at your disposal, the more easily malleable to other agendas that you become, in my opinion, which could be wrong.

I’m just going We’ll leave it there for today. I don’t know what kind of hot air and hopium is going on out in the news. It makes me feel sad that people will read junk like that. And say, I’m going to trust what I’m reading on these websites what I’m seeing on TV nightly news that, hey, people are doing great. Let’s just give ourselves a golf clap and how, how good Wall Street, how good corporate America how good the politicians are doing. We’re just so great. You have people that will believe that they won’t do anything to prepare for an emergency, they won’t do anything towards self sufficiency. They won’t get together a job loss survival plan, they’ll just go shit. There’s no recession here. And there’s not a recession coming. You’re just a fear monger. You’re just gloom and do. They will believe all of that. I know I said this before, but I’m going to say it again. This is where I diverge from Morgan Housel his book, The Psychology of money, his thesis that gloom and doom sells. Whereas if you try to be an optimist, if you try to point out the number of times the market has rebounded, then that’s not going to be as popular. I beg to effing differ. Excuse me, sir. I beg to differ. I think it’s quite the opposite. I know in in news media, there’s the slogan if it bleeds it leads, because people do like to watch sensational journalism. I get that. When it comes to these headlines, just look, the proof is in the pudding GDP is going up. No more calls for a recession. The Fed is probably done with its rate hikes, no matter what it says we are just trucking right down the hallway. Doing a good old job brownie to good old guy. Good, so much wa energy, right? Everything’s great right now, even though it’s not. Even though it’s not later today, or sometime tomorrow, I need to run some errands and get a few groceries and a few items. I know it’s going to be more expensive when I get in the store than it was the last time I was in there. Even though we’re told inflation is amazing. Where in the hell is that happening? Because I haven’t seen it yet. People are doing great. I Yeah, yeah. Anyway, you’ll have people that see those snippets of hot air and hope you and it’s what they want to believe anyway. So they will believe it. And then if you say well, but hey, wait a minute, like, what are you experiencing in real life? Is it cheaper yet? When you go to the grocery store? Are you seeing significant price reductions? Would you feel comfortable trying to buy a house right now? Do you feel like your paycheck is keeping pace with inflation? I mean, tell me about real changes in your life that match the hot air and hopium news? Well, they can’t give you those instances because they don’t freaking exist. But they want to believe this hotter and hopium. And I just Yeah, I told you before I stopped recording these broadcasts, hoping that I would wake somebody up. There’s there’s always the hope that somebody somewhere will tune in somebody will share a broadcast with them be like, Oh my god, I do want to get a job loss Survival Plan roughed out. I do want to know those first five phone calls I would make God forbid if I got laid off or my company closed down. You always hope that maybe the right person with ears to hear will hear it and will be helped by it in some way. I, I grow more and more skeptical of that, because I really think that we’ve just evolved into a society of very short attention span. Give me a soundbite and tell me what I want to hear dammit. Because if you challenge my thinking, if you provide me with anything other than echo chamber, I’m gonna get pissed off. I’m just I’m gonna leave it there. That’s all I have to say for today. Today, it is Friday, July 28. The main headline wherever you choose to go is probably about the Fed and inflation cooling. Ah, again, we’ll let the heavens open up and the angels strum on their harps. on CNBC, we find key fed inflation rate falls to lowest annual level in nearly two years. In the TLDR key points we read and inflation gauge that the Fed follows closely Rose 4.1% from a year ago, the lowest annual increase since September 2021. As well, but in and say it’s still increasing. We’re just supposed to turn cartwheels and somersaults that it’s the lowest annual increase, still going up. But it’s not going up like quite as much and quite as fast. You should be really happy about that little peon so called core PCE increased point 2% on the month as goods prices fell, while services costs rose, consumers continued to spend with expenditures up point 5% on the month Well, income increased a bit slower than expected. Hmm. Got it. So inflation is still happening, things are still going up. And income, by the way, is not keeping pace. It’s increasing a bit slower than expected. Oh, you don’t say the employment cost index, another key fed gauge Rose 1% during the second quarter, slightly less than expected. Wow. Sometimes that’s all you can say is just Well, okay. All right. Over on Yahoo Finance, it’s a similar scene. Feds preferred inflation gauge cools to lowest level in two years. The byline reads, it’s the latest sign that inflation in the United States is steadily cooling from its once painful highs. I see. Okay, so it’s steadily cooling. But then over on CNBC, we’re told it’s still going up. It’s just the lowest annual increase that we’ve seen in a while. A lot of wordsmithing a lot of interesting choices in the reports that we get, isn’t it so we also on Yahoo Finance, find stocks rebound as inflation continues cooling. Procter and Gamble CEO has a promising inflation outlook in the US. And another article, Procter and Gamble CEO on very strong earnings, price hikes and falling commodity prices. Just good news all the way around. What happens after stocks soar through July, the market the stock market is up. We’re supposed to believe the job market is churning and burning. No recession. People are doing great. Randomly, we also find Jeff Bezos is paying $600,000 a month in rent to this famous musician. What in the hell? Why would you pay? I don’t care if you have hundreds of billions of dollars. And you’ve reached that point where frankly, money is no object. Why would you pay $600,000 a month to rent a place? I don’t get it, it feels like you would go through your money. Lm a lot quicker, even if we assume he’s got enough money that he could spend crazy amounts and still not run out within this lifetime. That feels precarious to me to pay $600 a month in rent. Again, all you can say sometimes is wow. Before I segue off of Yahoo Finance, there was another article that caught my attention. Can I really live off the interest of my $1 Million Dollar Portfolio? that intrigued me because I think we still have this idea in the United States that if I if I do fire, or work really hard, I pay off any kind of personal debt I follow a Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman plan if I can just get a million dollars like that is the golden number, no pun intended. If I can just get a million dollars and invest it smartly, then it will kick out enough to me that I can just live on the interest. I will that money will exist and it will pay me a salary. And I won’t have to work anymore. Now what it is that people are intending to do while they’re not working? I’m not sure. I have publicly talked about this many times. And I know that it ruffled some feathers. I had a man Splinter once that got upset with me because he wanted to be sure that I knew that when you retire, you don’t have to just sit in a rocking chair he wanted me to know even though he’s a complete effing stranger, that he plays golf, and he plays tennis and he’s very active. And I’m like good for you. Good for you. If you’re living the dream, and you’ve got plenty of money good for you. I, however, don’t really have any desire to sit for long periods of time. And the majority of people that I have known not anecdotally, I hope somebody somewhere a friend of a friend of a friend of Aunt Sally. No, I’m talking about people I have known personally. When they retired with no game plan of what they were going to do. They just thought I’m done with working. I’m tired of having a boss I’m ready to go.

A lot of those people seem to have a shortened lifespan. Now am I sitting here telling you to sell your soul to the crony capitalist machine and work? No, I’m not. It’s your decision to do what you want to do. I’m just telling you what I have observed. And for me being in the young part of Gen X, it became super clear to me early in life that retirement this magical idea of retirement as it exists the proverbial pension and the gold watch. They throw you a party and give you a cake and then you get to go and live your life. Maybe you get an RV and go around you visit all the girls I had kids, I knew that was not going to be reality for me. And for I would say, a vast majority of other people in my generation. I just I caught on. And being a young adult when the Enron scandal happened just further cemented it in my mind, like, that is not going to be me. Whatever I have to do to keep myself mentally and physically sharp, so that I can work and not have this idea of a fixed income. Well, that just as an entrepreneur, no, I don’t want a fixed income. I don’t I don’t like that idea. I find it demotivating, quite frankly. But that’s just me. That’s my preference. And I feel like these people that have some idea of if I can just hustle if I can make life miserable, and hustle long enough to put a million dollars in the bank, or put a million dollars in some type of investment with a money manager than I will get enough. I can have my dream. One thing I did think that was interesting about Morgan Housel ‘s book, The Psychology of money, even though there were swaths of it that I pretty firmly disagreed with, like the optimism versus pessimism debate, for example, one thing that I found really interesting is the idea that retirement is really like a guaranteed retirement with the proverbial pension and the gold watch. It’s only a couple of generations old at best. And as I said earlier, when I went back through the family tree, and I really started thinking about like the great grandparents, but more so, the great, great, and the great, great, great grandparents, yeah, hell yeah, they worked. They worked, there was no idea of, I’m going to give the prime years of my life to accompany. And then at the end of it all, they’ll take care of me, I’ll get my golden parachute, I’ll get my watch and my pension. He also I think, does a good job of dispelling the notion that all of these people from the greatest generation and the baby boomer generations all had these privately held pensions like everybody like Oprah with the car, you get a car and you get a car, you get a pension, and you got a pension and you got a pension. I think more people need to know that. I think people need to understand that no, not everybody did get the gold watch and the pension fantasy, some people did, a lot of people did not. And so it is I think, in my opinion, I could be wrong. This idea of if I can just knuckle down, if I can be miserable, and work 5000 jobs and do whatever I’ve got to do to get that million dollars, it’ll all be easy, straight from there, I’ll have to be miserable while it’s going on. But then once I’ve got it, I’m on Easy Street. This article breaks it down. And I want to I want to read this to you now, at the time of writing, as noted below, bonds are running hot with a 4.66% average interest rate, your $1 million investment then will kick back $46,600 In returns. So let’s think about that. How many people the economy being the way that it is the cost of living being the way that it is now, how many people would be happy and satisfied on less than 50k a year. If the person was single, no children, no animals, and they had very spartan tastes, which I’m not saying is negative or positive. That’s a personal thing. Some people have champagne taste on a beer budget, and then they wonder why they’re broke all the time. Other people don’t care. I’m imagining a single person, no children, no significant other. No animals that says I will live in an efficiency apartment in the middle of nowhere and drive a beater car, they might, they might be able to pull it off on 46 and a half grand they might be able to. But that salary does not go as far as it used to. It just doesn’t. I was talking to a candidate the other day. And he said, it used to be that whenever I would look at sales jobs, they would want to offer a base salary of 35 to 40 based on experience, and I’m really not seeing those opportunities anymore because of inflation. Because of the economy. A lot of companies now will offer you a base salary of 50k, because 35 to 40 is just not going to cut it anymore. I mean, I think people who have have had to live on that amount of money can tell you. It can make things very tight. It can make things very tight. So I’m just sitting here and I’m like, Okay, how many people are going to really be happy with that amount of money? We maybe if you had you had 46 and a half and then you had a spouse also a significant other that also had that same amount of money coming in the two of you could pull resources together, and then it might not be quite as tough. I don’t know. I don’t know. But it seems to me that I would rather just not limit myself, I would rather not. Ride myself hard, and give up some prime years of my life, to hoard this money, and then hope it’s going to be enough to make it. I think back to the article that I read, I believe it was in last week’s broadcast about the firefighter who was forced into retirement and then had to go back to work because the money he had just wasn’t enough. I know it sounds like ostensibly, a million dollars is a lot of money. But nowadays, it’s actually not and then you so you think about am I really gonna be able to leave that money alone, not touch it and just live off 46 and a half $1,000 a year. That is not for me, personally, I don’t give you advice. I don’t tell you what to do. Not a financial advisor or financial planner, you need to figure that out with a professional for yourself. It’s not a choice that I would make. I would I would not feel comfortable trying to take care of a family and a farm on a fixed income like that, and just hope I didn’t have an emergency. Because here’s the deal. If you do have an emergency, you’re gonna have to raid the prime, you’re gonna have to get into that million dollar nest egg, which is going to impact how much interest you attend me if I’m getting a headache. I just it’s hard for me to imagine that that fantastical scenario of we’re going to work really hard. We’re going to have this money. And then we’re going to live like poppers after we’ve got it because we only want to live off the interest rate. It’s like why would you not just work? Seriously, I’m not trying to sound like a neocon here. I’m just asking the question, why would you not just work? I mean, what, what’s going on? That you’re like, I want to lay up in the house and watch TV. Because I feel like that’s what a lot of people do. For all of the mansplaining is passionate about. I play golf and I play tennis and I’m active. I don’t just sit in a rocking chair. I’m like, Okay, well, let’s look at the obesity rate in America. And you’re trying to tell me that you’re in the majority. I don’t freaking think so. I think most people go home and they sit in front of the TV and the idiot box becomes their retirement. Then their health goes downhill mentally and physically. I have seen it numerous times. And other people have written to me and told me the same thing that they to saw it with parents and grandparents or aunties and uncles. I mean, I think unfortunately, that’s that’s the more common scenario than Oh, I’m an ultra marathoner. Now that I’m retired, okay, well, that’s fine. That’s fine. Over on PBS NewsHour, this popped up as an alert on my phone and I wanted to make sure to talk about it because I was like, Oh, okay. This goes back to Word smithing. Interesting language, interesting spin, in my opinion, how a rolling recession or a rich session could spare the rest of the economy from a downturn. Now rolling recession we’ve heard before but I don’t think I’ve heard rich session. This is a new one on me. Despite more than a year of widespread warnings that a recession was near America’s economy is if anything accelerating. Okay, so they’re gonna double down. They’re not going to tell you okay, maybe looks like the recession that was going to rise from the Miss like Brigadoon is not going to maybe we dodged the bullet. No. Oh, no, America’s economy is if anything accelerating. Even as the Federal Reserve has sent borrowing costs sharply higher, the economy’s resilience has been on plain display. Consumers keep spending and employers keep hiring. New sure about that. Inflation has reached its lowest level in two years helping Americans stretch their paychecks.

The government estimated Thursday that the economy expanded at a solid 2.4% annual rate in the April to June quarter and unexpected pickup from the 2% pace in the first quarter. Businesses helped drive the growth with robust investment in equipment, software and buildings. Notice we see those two are words a lot resilient and robust. The latest snapshot of the economy coincides with the rising sentiment that it may achieve an elusive soft landing, in which growth slows and inflation falls without igniting a full blown recession. Analysts point to two trends that might help stave off an economic contraction. Some say the economy is experiencing a rolling recession, a circumstance in which on least some industries shrink, while the overall economy manages to stay above water, all button and say if you’re in one of those industries, it’s not going to make a whole lot of difference to you. If your job gets eliminated. If you’re the victim of a layoff, it’s not going to matter all that much to you. Oh, well, these other people seem to be doing great. People are doing great nothing to say here. Yeah. Other things the nation might have experienced what they call a rich session. Major job cuts they note have been concentrated in higher paying industries like technology and finance heavy with professional workers who generally have the financial cushions to withstand layoffs. You sure about that? job cuts in those fields as a result are less likely to sink the overall economy. Okay. I’m gonna button right there because I want to go pull the statistic of how many people live paycheck to paycheck. Give me just a second. Got it. So, according to Lending Club, 60% of Americans now live paycheck to paycheck. If we go over to PR Newswire, however, with a more recent statistic, they are saying that 61% overall live paycheck to paycheck, while 69% of Americans in urban areas live paycheck to paycheck. But somehow, these people have financial cushions to withstand layoffs. This gives me the vibe of Mitch McConnell, the turtle saying that everyone was flushed with cash. Everyone got huge sums of money from the stimulus. And they made it last, like the miracle of loaves and fishes for all this time. Supposedly, all of these people are rich. They’ve been laid off, but kind of like Screw them, it’s not really that big of a deal, because they have the financial cushion to withstand a layoff. Okay, right. But a majority of people live paycheck to paycheck, and almost 70% of people living in urban areas live paycheck to paycheck, but you expect me to believe that somehow these same people have a big financial cushion. And if they get laid off? Oh, well, whatever. It’s not not not going to be a big issue. Okay. Sure. Right. I mean, common sense people. job cuts in those fields as a result are less likely to sink the overall economy still come up threats Loon, the Fed raised its key interest rate on Wednesday to about 5.3%, its highest level in 22 years. And they do so again before the end of this year. It will benefit if you have a high set it will benefit you you will see more money coming into that savings account. If you are thinking about dipping your toe in the real estate market, God help you. I just I can’t believe I just I can’t believe I can’t believe somebody would even sink unless you had to unless I mean your back was against the wall and you had to you had to move for some extremely compelling reason. I cannot imagine somebody saying I will buy a doodoo poop lemon house that’s going to need a lot of work at a high interest rate. And the price of it is too high. I’ll probably never get my money back out of this thing. We have put my tinfoil hat on maybe even my tinfoil suit. I feel like you have to think about that long term. I mean, what’s the ramification of people being that upside down? I’m going to be trapped here. And that’s provided I don’t have a job loss. I never go under I never have to declare bankruptcy because I’ll never get my money back out of this place. I mean, visit Am I the only one who’s kind of like thinking that maybe perhaps a scenario like that could lead to UVA on nursing and you could be happy. Your option is to get in your hovel and eat your cricket burger and get your universal basic income and just be happy with it go into virtual reality. If you feel like your own reality isn’t good enough. kind of seems like things could go in that direction. I’m just saying. And I intend to, by the way, at some point, to record an episode about that very topic of UBI. And why I don’t think it’s going to be a savior to the world. I know a lot of youngsters that have bought into that hook, line and sinker and they think if I just surrender to Big Brother, everything will be fine. I will get my UBI I won’t have to work anymore. And I can lay up at the house and watch tick tock all day and it’s like, is that? Is that what you want though? Is that is that really gonna go in the direction that you think it’s gonna go in? Because I watched this documentary. I’ll have to go back and find it whenever I’m ready to record the episode. You know how I roll. I’m all the time reading it all the time watching documentaries. I watched this documentary I think it was from Deutsche Bank. a lot. And it was about this community in England. It was about poverty in England overall. There’s one particular community where they they had been getting government assistance through a job center. And it was supposed to be like UBI. But the reality, put all of these people in poverty, and they were making the heat or eat decisions, there was a guy and at night, it was like 40 degrees in his house. Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like if we labor under the misapprehension that all of these people have a nest egg of money. They’re doing great. Everything is fine. People overpay for crap, whether it’s a vehicle they can’t afford a house they can’t afford or they can’t maintain. You’re talking about a lot of defaults in the future. I’m sorry, if that offends you. I’m sorry. If that’s not hot air and hopium. I don’t see any way around it. And then you have these huge hedge hedge funds and real estate investment firms that are just waiting, they are salivating to buy that stuff on the cheap. UVA unknotting. And UVB happy getting your 15 Minute city getting your 15 Second prison and just touch believe what we tell you and shut up. I wish I could say otherwise. Those rate increases imposed heavy borrowing costs on consumers and businesses. That’s why some economists caution that a full blown recession may still occur. So we got some hedging of bets there. Right. When Zoom is doing cool, how mealy mouthed the Fed will keep pushing until it fixes the inflation issue said you Elena. Sure, Yachty Avila, I wish that were in Cyrillic, you’d probably say it better surely, surely, to an economist at BNP Paribas, here’s how it could all play out in the United States. All right. So one scenario apparently is it’s the rolling recession. The other is, it’s the rich session. And I will leave you to decide on this, go go and read the article for yourself, you can decide whether you believe any of this is true or not. It’s just giving me a headache at this point. And that’s really how I’ll wrap it up for the Saturday broadcast. You’ve got to make your own decisions. You’ve you’ve got to come to your own conclusions. I went yesterday, I had a little time to run some errands went by the Dollar General had not been in there in a while. And it was funny because when I pulled up there was a sign in the window, even lower prices. Were there were two shopping carts toward the front of the store of clearance items. And it was just junk. Little glass tchotchkes and votive candles and a few greeting cards and like a couple of kids blankets that had been marked down to five bucks a pop. And I’m like, is this it? Because in terms of necessity items, food, water, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, paper towels, medications, feminine products, etc. No, I didn’t see any markdowns. I’m like, Where the hell are these even lower prices is it just the two shopping carts at the front full of junk that nobody wants is that it went to the grocery store not seeing any price decreases there. It was still painfully expensive to get basic items. Not going in living high on the hog buying everything in the store getting caviar and fancy imported cheeses and lavish wines. No getting basics. In is still expensive.

So for me, I find it hard to believe all of this suppose the good news that it’s coming down guys, it’s cooling off. Now actually, it’s still increasing, but we want you to think it’s decreasing. So we’re going to use a lot of chicanery and Svengali type language here to obscure that from you because we think you’re just too freakin stupid to understand. Gas is also going up in my part of the Midwest, I noticed that. I it it’s hard for me to believe that we’re not in a recession. It’s hard for me to believe that inflation is cooling. Things are things are doing great. The job market is churning and burning. It’s doing good. The economy’s robust and resilient. I’m much more curious about why I’ve already in my mind resigned myself to the fact that yeah, we’re in a recession. We’re in a poop storm. Things are not churning and burning everywhere. They’re just not. To me, it’s a much more interesting question to contemplate. Why? Why are we breadcrumbed Why is the gaslighting going on what’s happening? That the mainstream media and the cronies are all trying to papier mache over the cracks in the foundation? You don’t need to know what’s going on, sit down, shut up and do business as usual. I feel like it’s a much more interesting rabbit hole to go down of why? What is it that we’re not supposed to know? What is it that we’re not supposed to think about? Why are we not supposed to be prepping? Why do they not want anybody to have emergency preparedness? What’s up with that? panic when you’re supposed to panic? But then sit down, shut up, and don’t think about it if that’s what we want you to do. Judge for yourself. Stay safe, stay sane. And I will see you in the next episode.

Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a quick second to subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends. We’ll see you next time.