From Motley Fool:
Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Has This Advice for Getting Through a Recession
The more money you have in savings leading up to a potential recession, the better equipped you’ll be to get through a period of upheaval. So it’s best to do what you can to conserve cash. Doing so, says Bezos, will allow you to “take some risk off the table.”
One good way to shore up your savings, says Bezos, is to put off large purchases for the time being. This means that if you were thinking of upgrading to a new car in the next few months, hold off, provided your existing vehicle still runs. And rather than buy new furniture or appliances for your home, stick with the ones you already have and put the money you would’ve spent into your savings.
Incidentally, this advice from Bezos doesn’t just apply to everyday consumers. It also applies to small business owners. Specifically, it’s wise for small businesses to avoid large capital expenditures during this current period of uncertainty.
first
Elon’s been busy he just fired 4,400 consultants who were content moderators including Melissa Ingle who has been very vocal about it, claims the toilets are overflowing and the elevators stopped working.
https://twitter.com/mingle74
Does turning your face into a comic book character count as a large capital expenditure?
Where would one find a new desirable car in their price range nowadays?
Just to put it into perspective they had over 12,000 people working there. That is a pretty massive payroll for a company that has been consistently losing money every quarter for years on end. So he gutted the place. What’s next?
I like how msm media is all of the sudden analyzing the viability of business models of tech companies…oh wait…no. just this one now that it’s private.
BRT, I’ll look to lean into the volatility and moves if I can have reasonable assurance that people are offsides…determining that is part of the reason I’m trolling a regional RE forum later on a Sunday night regarding Fed moves I guess…
The summer runup was a gimme, remember the forecasts of two raises of 125bps each? With everyone leaning to one side of the boat, taking the opposite was not only easy but incredibly cheap because of the money piling into the prevailing view…
Tougher this time…the usual signposts are confused…as I have a conviction of 50bps and an ‘everything else being equal’ market response strongly upward I would like to lean long if I think that’s not priced in…but…among other items the FFR stats I gave above can give me pause…
Oh well, lots of Fed speakers this week…let’s hope for some real hard hawkish talk and show me 3700 or under on the SPX and I’ll pile in….
Twitter 3rd party content mod is not impacted, don’t ask me how I know, in fact, I have reason to believe they are scaling up.
leftwing,
Interesting take on your FED rate scenario. I’m a mere novice when discussing it. All I can do is take past events and compare it to today. From what I gather, you’re saying it’s not a good practice. My simple logic tells me that if you want to get to 2% inflation, you keep pounding the nail into the lumber until it’s flush. It sounds like a very delicate balancing act because when do you know to ease off the throttle as the ship is approaching the dock?
Snow in Ukraine now..Going to be a long winter in the trenches. Zelensky said there was now intense fighting around Donetsk the city Ukraine lost in April of 2014. Ukraine is trying to push forward there now, there has been trench warfare and shelling for nearly 9 years in that region. Even with all the weapons we have supplied them with they will have a tough time advancing as both sides have been dug in. Ukraine’s artillery has a longer reach now thanks to the West, but that means they might actually have to shell the city to advance forward. Little press coming out of that area, the Ukrainians have a pretty effective media lockdown even suspending CNN when they went into Kherson to report without permission, so we may not even hear about what is happening to move forward across those front lines.
These are the people that are majority ethnic Russian speakers and there are about 1.8 million of them, many may flee to Russia if they have not left already. We will see how badly Zelensky wants that territory back in the coming months. It might be a lost cause if there is nothing standing and nobody left to liberate.
Gary, yes…past events are good guides but only in context. Without context (and therefore the ability to discern applicability to today) they are nearly meaningless…
Regarding the Fed, I like when the focus moves to the 2% goal…grabbing this point from your post not to be argumentative but it’s a good example…so much actionable – up and down – is going to happen before reaching that goal, assuming they actually get there…the more people focus on getting specifically to that goal and how far away we are the more bearish they become today…
Me, I see a major market sentiment rally (not fundamental based) when the FFR crosses the YoY CPI, and market being the market it will rally in advance…that rip is the one I’m trying to focus on now…I did a lot of work over the weekend and see a consumer led slowdown accelerating….lots of anecdata and charts but in the aggregate…hell, Exhibit W is the lead post today…the founder and Chairman of the largest retailer in America is telling the populace to [drumroll] stop spending money and bolster their savings instead…
The new push for Ukraine to talk with Russia feels like backchannel pressure from Russia to enter negotiations in a way that saves face. Peskov’s comments from the other day “Ukraine doesn’t want peace”, dovetails right into that, making me think it’s the case.
I said this a few weeks back, Ukraine is not going to stop, no way. They are going to take back the Luhansk and Donetsk, and make a real push for taking back Crimea too. They will evacuate, then completely level these areas, for them, this is retribution.
There is no peace until those goals are accomplished. Sorry. Ukraine will fall before it capitulates on the take back. Look for attacks inside of Russia to step up as they get closer to these goals, they’ll have no choice as they push back forces. They can’t stop just because troops and artillery cross back over the border.
Winter is going to be brutal for Russians in Ukraine.
Ukraine forces are going to decimate any chance at establishing supply lines. This is going to play out like Finland vs. Russia Winter War.
Russia is woefully underprepared, the Ukrainians I’m sure are already outfitted with snow camo, snipers and saboteurs on snowmobiles and skis.
Russian troops are going to freeze to death before they starve to death.
They are not retaking farmland and small villages anymore. It’s 62 miles from the Russian border to the city of Donesk and surronding suburbs are about 2.5 million people. The Russians have been supplying those civilians with food and fuel, and supplies just fine and have done so for 8 years now. There is no mass starvation and or freezing deaths of the civilians, that would happen before the troops starve and freeze, which they did not last winter, and probably won’t this winter either.
The Russians retreated to previous lines and dug in, the reports are constant shelling of the trenches on both sides. Nobody is skiing anywhere, this is flat farm land.. Russia is inept, their troops are inept, yet this war could still drag on for many more years regardless of how inept they may be.
We shall see how far Zelensky is willing to go soon enough to retake this key city. To move forward Ukraine might have to shell the city and civilians, that would be more war crimes, how will the west react to that horror?
It’s Base Effect Monday with your host Leftwing.
Screw that. I want deflation.
Juice: you eyeing any of those $70 trees at WF?
LOL, love you too chi.
Market exists to inflict maximum pain on maximum numbers of people. One last pump as everyone is flat to sucker them in to a 4200ish rally at the top before yanking the rug out hard shortly thereafter.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it :)
Left: You enjoying this from West Palm?
Chi – I was planning on cutting down my neighbors tree, as he is away in Florida until the spring…!!
We are hosting this year, in-laws and cousins etc. I have a nice artificial one I bought back in my Hoboken days. I may use that one or go get a real one at Home Depot.
But even their prices are higher this year too.
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Holiday-Decorations-Christmas-Decorations-Christmas-Trees-Real-Christmas-Trees/Cut-Christmas-Tree/N-5yc1vZc3t5Z1z18bfw
There is always a cheaper option, I will keep a lookout…
Juice: when the trees were $50-75 in Hoboken, you used to go up to a church in Union City and get even better ones for $25.
Fun with charts…
https://twitter.com/UrbanKaoboy/status/1594699500790104064?s=20&t=IeARlJpXWvx3yKulwbNBKw
Chi – There was that old closed church in Hoboken, it would re-open just for Christmas Trees, no money went to charity that is for sure, it was on the corner of 6th and Willow. It’s is or was run by the guy who was in charge of Sanitation in town. Was a nice cash only operation, with expensive trees that is for sure, they were like $100 back then. The owner would laugh all the way to his shore house he bought with the cash.
I did the synthetic tree for years which I still have, as well I was almost always away skiing over the holidays on some various 10,00 ft mountain out west. Fun times, I am wearing my vail hat now when I go out now as it’s cold enough. I will get some freshies this winter, a quick trip upstate NY or Vermont……
Biden to pardon Trump?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/21/politics/biden-thanksgiving-turkey-pardon/index.html
I see that Bob Iger returned to Disney to try and right the ship. Left wing perversion indoctrination is not a good business model. Growing up, Disney was truly a magical experience, both on our TVs and in person. Why did they think turning it into a progressive borstal institution was a good thing? Let’s see which direction Iger takes the company from here.
Bringing Iger back was a solid move from a perception standpoint, wonder what it cost them.
Seemed like everything Chapek touched turned to shit.
I had a busy weekend which included Gator Jr.’s tier 2 championship win in double OT over the Jersey Titans (Middletown) in the Red Bank Armory and a stint of volunteerism to give back to a great charity that helped us greatly that supports childhood cancer families (Kissed for Kyle). We volunteered to man their table in Macy’s in the Monmouth Mall for 4 hours on Sunday for a toy drive. We did real well, but the real eye opener was the mall itself. I know it’s an old mall and we are talking Eatontown, but at least a quarter of the stores are vacant. I’ve never seen this in a mall before, though I don’t spend a lot of times in malls since the times I used to live in them in the 80s. What a depressing joint. That Macy’s (where we volunteered) was looking old.
Sorry I missed out on the whole FED inflation, PCI and recession discussion. The only thing I would add to it is that we are ignoring the underlying fundamentals of the stocks which make up the indexes. I know it’s a constant battle between being forward-looking about the markets and the length and depth of the upcoming recession. My experience tells me to expect a sharp drop-off and a quick return. The traditional V-shaped jam. But I think it’s going to be a deep V. I think where today’s multiples are reflect the current state of business without ZIRP and QE and the Trump tax and repatriation stimuli. I think we are all failing to value in earning during a real recession. You can tell in the latest PCI, the cut back by the consumer has been slight. Layoffs have been minimal and the job reports have been downright positive. I think the latter two change in the Spring and upcoming Summer. It’s been what I’ve been saying all along.
The problem with the FED stopping here (pivoting as the pine nut, zucchini crowd calls it) is that the market will again be off to the races and this will again cause inflation to come rearing back. I actually agree that the FED has probably come far enough, but history tells us they will overshoot.
I guess the conclusion I am coming too is simply that it’s too early to back the car up. Wait for the “V.” I don’t doubt a speedy recovery built on much more solid fundamentals. As a matter of fact, I am banking on it. But we are not blood in the streets yet. We are merely waiting for the next leg down based on the upcoming worsening company fundamentals due to the just starting consumer slowdown.
Your mileage may vary.
Go Devils and tonight is the first night of the VGR hockey season. This is a team that the town has been waiting ten years for. It’s the most senior talent we’ve ever had and I have a feeling they are going to do quite well in one of the most difficult public leagues in the state. Hope some of you will come to a game. Especially the Montclair/VGR rivalry game.
Lib – re: “What a depressing joint”. Yeah that Kushner mall. JC Penny closed over the summer. I don’t even go there for movies. It is supposed to be redeveloped into housing, eliminate 1/2 the mall and build 1,000 apartments. Kushner wants a sweetheart payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT agreement. If it’s all apartments you can expect the city folks to move there, anything to get out of Staten Island etc. The homeowners will get killed without the taxes to support the increase of school age kids that is for sure, as the schools are left out of PILOT taxes etc.
BTW Riverton in Sayreville was approved. A massive new development as you cross the parkway bridge to the right of exit 125. 2,000 apartments and a mall etc. 2.5 billion, mixed-use project supposedly broke ground…
It seems the building never ends, but it has mostly now switched to apartments instead of condos.
Already approaching 10% on my TSLA short. I’m inclined to let this one run some more.
The best part of Riverton is that Amazon warehouse sized mega-church that centers the development. You would think with all of those rip roaring evangelicals doing all of that praying, a building would have gone up by now, instead of them just pushing around dirt piles for the past 15 years.
Google Epic Church Intl.
These mixed use projects are far from the sustainable mixed use projects this country needs. Who TF wants to life in the north east corner of a mall and drive past a Best Buy to get home?
This comment is neither here nor there, but the projects getting approved are the equivalent of EPA compliance vehicles. Just a line item on some beefy return somewhere.
“Who TF wants to life in the north east corner of a mall and drive past a Best Buy to get home?”
Lots of people! Especially if the price is right.
“These mixed use projects are far from the sustainable mixed use projects this country needs. Who TF wants to life in the north east corner of a mall and drive past a Best Buy to get home?”
LOL…don’t forget adjacent to massive municipal waste water facilities, and underneath bridges with 20 lanes of traffic, and on a nearly abandoned peninsula on one of the most polluted waterways in the nation.
You people from Jersey have no idea of the concept of quality of life. In the depressed area in which I was raised this is where Section 8 developments go…actually I take that back…a Section 8 complex with a better profile near my hometown with a better profile (adjacent to RR tracks, behind an auditorium) was recently abandoned and demolished.
https://www.lynalden.com/november-2022-newsletter/
Lyn Alden
November 2022 Newsletter: The Long-Term Fiscal Spiral
November 20, 2022
The Upcoming Debt Problem’s Timeline
As interest rates rise, not all federal debt gets refinanced to that new rate immediately. The average maturity of federal debt is about 5 years. As existing debt matures month after month, it gets refinanced at the new rates.
However, the debt is pretty front-loaded. Although the average maturity is five years, this includes some very long 20-year and 30-year bonds. Large swaths of the debt are two years or less in duration, and that is getting refinanced upward pretty quickly.
With over $30 trillion in debt outstanding, each 100 basis point rise in weighted-average interest rates adds about $300 billion to annual interest expense. So for example if the average interest expense on $30 trillion in debt is 2%, then the annual interest expense will be $600 billion. If, over time, the interest rate average goes up to 4%, then this results in $1.2 trillion in annual interest expense. As the debt goes to $35 trillion, $40 trillion, $50 trillion, and so forth, then obviously that also adds to raw interest expense.
Millennial snowflake waitstaff hot take on tipping “if you cannot afford to tip 20%, then don’t go out to eat.”
Fast: here is a little wrinkle, although you are not wrong. Disney is HQ’s in SoCal, but in addition, the vast majority of the IP of the company is developed by “creatives”. By definition, the company has a problem. It is associated with Orlando, but really, the vast majority of the most valuable employees are some variation of LQBTQ+ or hugely sympathetic. There is really no win here.
Fast Eddie says:
November 21, 2022 at 11:19 am
I see that Bob Iger returned to Disney to try and right the ship. Left wing perversion indoctrination is not a good business model. Growing up, Disney was truly a magical experience, both on our TVs and in person. Why did they think turning it into a progressive borstal institution was a good thing? Let’s see which direction Iger takes the company from here.
The End Is Nigh (ex It Is No Gateway Drug Edition):
Vending Machines Dispense Narcan to Reverse Opioid Overdoses
By Julie Wernau and Kris Maher
Vending machines stocked with overdose-reversing nasal spray are part of the latest attempt to diminish a record tide of drug deaths.
The Food and Drug Administration and some states have loosened restrictions on drugs including Narcan that are sprayed into the nose to reverse an opioid overdose.
Nonprofits that work with opioid users are distributing more of the drugs as a result. Getting Narcan as close as possible to people at risk for an overdose is essential to saving lives, they said.
“If we hadn’t had that vending machine, I might not have had my brother alive today,” said LuDene LoyaltyGroves, who works at a homeless shelter in Moses Lake, Wash. People staying with her brother in a nearby encampment retrieved Narcan from a vending machine at the shelter and used it to revive him repeatedly, she said.
Drug-overdose deaths topped 108,000 last year, a record fueled by the potent illicit opioid fentanyl.
Fentanyl has pervaded the drug supply, killing people who don’t know it is in cocaine or fake pills. It is also killing habitual users who mix it with drugs including methamphetamine.
The vending machines aim to make it easier for drug users to get overdose antidotes themselves. A five-year project through 2021 led by the University of Washington found that 94% of overdose reversals are administered by opioid users. Less than 1% of the 8,711 overdoses recorded during the project were reversed with the help of EMTs or police.
Aid groups that work with drug users are driving new business to vending-machine makers. The Wittern Group said it first got a call from an aid group in Las Vegas in 2018 asking the 90-year-old vending machine company to outfit a few used machines to dispense Narcan. Last year, more than 100 groups that dispense free Narcan to users called to request quotes for vending machines that cost up to $12,000.
Wittern said its customers include a Rhode Island group that provides clean needles to drug users as well as Yale University and agencies in California that received funding from Anthem Blue Cross. Some social-service agencies are stocking free snacks, condoms and socks alongside Narcan. Others have added kits that test drugs for fentanyl.
“They’re putting them in fire stations, jails, churches, places that are public,” said Julie Burgess, head of a division Wittern created to handle higher demand from groups distributing Narcan.
Shaffer Distributing Co. said its first order for a machine to dispense free Narcan came from Wayne State University in Detroit in 2021 as overdose deaths were soaring. Marty Turner, director of vending-equipment sales for the Columbus, Ohio-based company, said he has sold 200 such vending machines since then. Shaffer’s prices range from $3,400 for a basic machine to $11,000 for a WiFi-enabled, temperature-controlled version.
“Purely through word-of-mouth, it just took off,” Mr. Turner said.
The Central Washington Recovery Coalition, a nonprofit that helps drug users, installed a machine in each of three rural counties last year. Overdose deaths in the region have risen 500% in a year. The machines have dispensed about 50 Narcan kits a month per machine, said Joey Hunter, who helped found the coalition.
The group and its partners pay about $12,500 for 250 doses of Narcan, Mr. Hunter said. Narcan is the brand name for nasal spray naloxone, made by Emergent BioSolutions Inc. People who have used the kits have reported via a QR code on the packaging that the drugs have reversed 55 overdoses.
“For the people who aren’t ready for treatment, it’s saving a lot of tax dollars because they’re doing those reversals themselves,” Mr. Hunter said.
Caracole, an HIV-services nonprofit that works with drug users in Cincinnati, said it installed a Narcan vending machine outside its offices last year because fewer people were coming into clinics to pick up the medication during the pandemic. Narcan dispensed from the machine has reversed 596 overdoses, according to Caracole Chief Executive Linda Seiter.
“We’re helping to keep people alive,” she said. Local prosecutors opposed the group’s suggestion to also stock syringes in the machine, she added.
To use the vending machine, people receive a code from the nonprofit and then punch it in to retrieve doses for three months. People can get up to eight doses of Narcan a week. It often takes multiple doses to revive someone who has overdosed, Ms. Seiter said. The machines also hold fentanyl test strips, which can be dipped into water in which drugs have been dissolved to determine whether fentanyl is present.
Kenneth Mattingly, the chief of police in Vine Grove, Ky., installed a Narcan machine outside a police department so small that Mr. Mattingly often picks up the phone when residents call. Within a day after it was installed on Sept. 29, the machine was emptied of 36 boxes of Narcan, Mr. Mattingly said. On Nov. 9, he refilled the machine for the seventh time in just over a month.
The town of 7,000 has recorded two overdoses in recent weeks and he himself revived both people with Narcan, he said. Surrounding Hardin County has recorded 48 overdose deaths this year, after 50 overdose deaths in 2021.
“For my agency, a death investigation is taxing,” Mr. Mattingly said.
chicagofinance,
Well, Disney should do what made them successful for 85 plus years until they got into the business of progressive politics. If they put me in charge tomorrow as CEO of Disney, my very first company-wide email would state to keep your politics at home. If anyone objects, we’ll offer a severance package. Identity politics ruins everything, everything, everything, everything it touches. There is a win here… I want talent not a cloister of s0cial hecklers. Do your job or leave the company.
Eddie the faggelas that you do aptly mention in your tome above have given their lives and their anuses to the cartoon mouse.
There’s an easy solution. There’s plenty of talent to go around. If you take a look at HBO’s most recent version of Looney Tunes, it was done phenomenally, great humor, rags on guys, girls, moms/dads, bfs, girlfriends, workplace. The same goes for the Mickey Mouse shorts done by Paul Rudish. The people that try to inject politics/social issues into kids cartoons/movies need to be purged. They have failed the company and now it’s affecting their revenue.
Me Likely……. in fact Me Likely A Lot…..
Sam Bankman-Fried Becomes an ESG Truth-Teller
The fallen wizard of crypto confesses to phony virtue-signaling.
By The Editorial Board
Crypto dark knight Sam Bankman-Fried may have deceived investors, customers and various journalists and politicians. But now the FTX founder is at least telling the truth about a few things. Lo, he says that environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing is a fraud, and so was his progressive public posturing.
Mr. Bankman-Fried on Wednesday tweeted a rambling account attempting to explain how he managed to lose billions of dollars in FTX customer funds. “I was on the cover of every magazine, and FTX was the darling of Silicon Valley,” he noted. As a result, “we got overconfident and careless.” There’s an understatement for the digital ages.
Mr. Bankman-Fried virtue-signaled by committing to make FTX “carbon neutral” and donating generously to fashionable progressive causes such as a foundation working to provide solar energy in the Amazon River basin. “We’re giving millions each year to launch sustainability related initiatives,” he said in an April Forbes magazine interview with—you can’t make this up—Brazilian super-model Gisele Bündchen.
Meanwhile, he was leveraging FTX customer funds to make risky, ill-timed bets. “Problems were brewing. Larger than I realized,” he tweeted. “In the future, I’m going to care less about the dumb, contentless, ‘good actor’ framework,” he added. “What matters is what you do—is *actually* doing good or bad, not just *talking* about doing good or *using ESG language*.”
Mr. Bankman-Fried is also acknowledging that he genuflected to regulators and Democratic lawmakers to win political protection. ESG ratings company Truvalue Labs even gave FTX a higher score on “leadership and governance” than Exxon Mobil, though the crypto exchange had only three directors on its board. The directors were Mr. Bankman-Fried, another FTX executive and an outside attorney. Truvalue Labs says FTX was given an overall “laggard” score.
“ESG has been perverted beyond recognition,” Mr. Bankman-Fried confessed in an interview this week with Vox in which he also acknowledged that his advocacy for strong crypto regulations was “just PR.”
He said he feels “bad for those who get” harmed by “this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths [sic] and so everyone likes us.” Ah, yes, the poor saps who invest in companies because they claim to be sustainable.
For the record, Mr. Bankman-Fried denies wrongdoing. “It was never the intention” to bilk customers, he said. Maybe not. But here is an object lesson for investors and the American public in how progressive virtue-signaling is used to conceal business vices. Some people will believe anything if you wrap a chance to get rich quick in political fashion.
Quaint idea Gary, but Middle America never owned any entertainment asset. Ever.
Interesting quote from a James Stewart NYT article on the AT&T/Time Warner merger below when AT&T wanted to fire Zucker…lol, any question on the hostility toward Musk?
“Mr. Bewkes [CEO of Time Warner] was adamant that the news division was independent, and that he’d do nothing to interfere with its coverage. He would not fire Mr. Zucker [CEO CNN]. If he did, “all your journalists will resign,” he warned Mr. Stephenson. “They’ll tell everyone to write stories about what you’re doing. Nobody will bring you a script in Hollywood if you become part of the dark empire.”
Emphasis added.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/business/media/att-time-warner-deal.html
So SBF feels he needs to lecture on what’s right and wrong now? What’s it matter? He knowingly used all that crap to portray an image that helped him commit fraud, like everyone else who is using it to proclaim they are the good guys.
Dude is a sociopath.
Imagine being 30, getting nailed for fraud, and being so arrogant to lecture anyone older than you who’s worked for a living.
SBF’s parents and brother were in on it. Parents pushed him into the Effective Altruism movement too. Apparently there is a million dollar home in the Bahamas that they got for their efforts, was that kind of conveyance declared on their taxes?
It was all a fraud this Effective Altruism, because they never cared were the money came from, never looked under the covers, they only cared that it was spent on their causes.
BTW SBF was the fattest spokesperson for the Vegan movement. It’s for the animals he claimed. I bet he was scarfing down loads and loads of cheeseburgers and fast food.