From the Hill:
Goldman Sachs expects pause in Fed’s interest rate hikes
Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect the Federal Reserve to pause its interest rate hikes this week, citing concerns about uncertainty in the global financial system spurred by a string of destabilizing bank failures.
The Fed has been on a path of monetary tightening as it continues its fight against inflation, and it was expected to raise rates by another 0.25 percentage points at its upcoming policy meeting March 21-22. But bank failures, like the fall of Silicon Valley Bank, have put immediate tightening on a possible halt.
…
“We expect the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) to pause at its March meeting this week because of stress in the banking system,” Goldman economists, led by Jan Hatzius, said in a analysis.
“While policymakers have responded aggressively to shore up the financial system, markets appear to be less than fully convinced that efforts to support small and midsize banks will prove sufficient.”
…
Goldman economists argued that not raising rates at the end of this month would only be a “pause” in the fight against inflation, saying the Fed will still be able to reach its long-term goals related to inflation if it does not increase interest rates immediately.
“This would mean taking a pause in the inflation fight, but that should not be such a problem. Bringing inflation back to 2% is a medium-term goal, which the FOMC expects to solve only gradually over the next two years,” the economists said. “The FOMC can get back on track quickly if appropriate, and the banking stress could have disinflationary effects.”
first
Who doesn’t survive the next 5 years – Amazon, Google, or Facebook?
Re DeCamp Bus – Remember that those buses are actually owned by NJ Transit and are leased to DeCamp for $1 each so they can operate those commuter routes. I would bet NJ Transit will either operate those routes or have someone other company like Academy to take them over. Their drivers were never the benchmark in how to professionally treat your customers anyway.
Completely out of business or just no longer on top?
Amazon is in no danger from their nearest retail competitors, they are best in every class when it comes to merch sales, inventory management and delivery.
Google revenues are somewhere around 80% ads, search, YouTube and other. The phones and cloud revenues are about 20%. A seismic shift in search can happen as well, it has happened several times before. First AOL and to a degree Netscape, the Microsoft for a short time, then Yahoo was king before Google became the Supreme Commander of search.
Facebook revenues can be hurt by a stronger competitor like TikTok, but I don’t see a more popular other social media platform here in the US other than FB and Instagram.
Our government is also putting their hand on the scale with TikTok.
Of the three perhaps Google will lose to AI driven products. Too soon to tell if it will be Microsoft or dozens of other startups and players in the space. Heck even Elon and his PayPal mafia buddies are hatching something now, that you can bet on.
Realistically – no longer on top, it’s a long way down.
Elon is going to try to turn Twitter into WeChat, that’s for sure. Whether or not he can successfully break into the payments space is going to be the key here. It’s crowded, and just being an add-on of twitter has almost no value prop for end-users. What could be an interesting play is if Twitter moves in to take TikTok market share on the heels of a ban. If that happens, I think there is a better angle for payments to get some traction, especially if combined with real-time video commerce (like Whatnot).
Facebook isn’t relevant to the TikTok user base, Instagram is, but it’s waining. Facebook “Reels” is a silly re-attempt to gain that market. Facebook was stupid to break apart FB/IG/Messenger in the way they did. Now they want to try to go the other way. I can’t see how they don’t mess this up. Suckerberg doubling down on metaverse makes me think he’s entirely ego driven now, that’s a bad sign.
Google – They’ve fucked their employee base in a way that may be irreparable. Between AI-powered search assistants and privacy regulations making ads less effective, they face some serious headwinds.
Microsoft came out of nowhere windmill punching everybody around. They are more aggressive in cloud, and from my own vantage point, appear to be gaining market share much more rapidly than Google. Evidence of this is Google’s attempt to shift away from the huge enterprise commits that defined GCP.
Amazon is already cutting away hard at its non-core. Wonder if we’re going to see Amazon split into two completely different businesses.
Dorsey still has his stake in Twitter he did not cash out, so there is possibly some deal that could happen with Square for payments.
Problem with any type of fully integrated Wechat App here in the USA and EU is Antitrust laws. There was literally too small to fail legislation introduced last year in Congress that did not pass.
“American Innovation and Choice Online Act legislators”
The legislation was to clamp down on Amazon and Social media, as well as foreign competitors.
“Self-preferencing” their own products at the expense of competitors
Intentionally disadvantaging other firms’ products or services
Using non-public data generated by a business user to advantage the covered platform’s own products
Interfering with pricing decisions set by another business user
Remains to be seen if we see that again, as the Democrats are out for now, with the House being Republican controlled.
“Inflation is back and it;s not energy driven this time. That’s the scary part. It’s beginning to feel a little like the FED can’t stop it,”
Inflation calcs exclude Food and Energy. CPI is where you need to look. Surprisingly its not in Durables. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUSR0000SAD but pretty much everything else, Food, Gas, rent.
The Fed cant stop this. Until they drain the liquidity out of the banks, pushing rates up will have no effect. In fact in some ways its hurting more than helping.
Elon has been saying for months now that they need a complete rewrite of the Twitter stack. It is a mess of 20 million lines of Scala code and cost over a billion dollars in just hosting their massive server farm just for tweets and ads.
WeChat microservices architecture is far superior it accommodates more than 3000 services running on a three tiers of virtual machines The services are classified as Leap Service, Mid and Basic.
Payment is actually a front end “Leap Service” along with Login, Messaging and Moments.
Also WeChat Pay is almost a fee-free system. Only larger purchases and cross border purchases incur small fees. That is only possible because of big brother.
I suspect whatever money Elon saved by firing everyone will be used for the rewrite. It remains to be seen how much more of his own money he will need to keep pumping it in to get there.
Juice,
“Self-preferencing” their own products at the expense of competitors
Intentionally disadvantaging other firms’ products or services
Using non-public data generated by a business user to advantage the covered platform’s own products
Interfering with pricing decisions set by another business user
It’s my understanding that those ‘tactics’ are already illegal the laws are just not being enforced.
Like I said a few weeks earlier – I’m starting to see my own suppliers backpedal price increases and push discounts forward, sometimes in a big way. Glass, raw materials, supplies, equipment, etc. Chinese large equipment manufacturers pushing really hard – curious if there has been a major slowdown in new entrants and growth in the US craft beer and spirits market.
Wondering if we’re seeing the last wave of last-mile price increases come through – not that I’m trying to be intentionally hope-timistic here.
We’re considering some price increases right now, late I know, and also staring to include credit card surcharges – the pivot to “touch-less card” through covid was not kind to many small businesses. I’d love to go back to cold hard cash and knock that big 5 figure card fee right off my expenses sheet.
Self-preferencing” their own products at the expense of competitors
Intentionally disadvantaging other firms’ products or services
Sounds like every grocery chain in the US.
“Bringing inflation back to 2% is a medium-term goal”
Oh, here I was thinking we heard non-stop about the 2% targe for last 15 years. I guess we mis-heard Bernanke/Yellen/Powell. What self-serving non-sense. Translation “we, the bankers, making millions are ok with 7-9% inflation so who cares about rest of America”
Joyce – It’s not unlawful for major online platforms to engage in those conducts.
Apple’s app store and payments for example. One of the worst. You must pay thru Apple services if listed on the store and all in-app purchases must pay them a huge commission a 30 percent cut.
The Mafia never had it that good.
Ironically, NJ politicians are trying hard to make it illegal to pass through credit card surcharges to customers – they really want to try to kill small businesses. Even more ironic, try paying NJ state tax liabilities with a credit card, they pass through a whopper of a surcharge – I guess that’s OK.
I already printed up a mock sign:
Love your cash back? Love that free checked bag and airline miles you get? Those hotel upgrades are awfully nice, we know. Unfortunately, they aren’t free, those perks are paid by the small businesses that you use your card at. Unfortunately, going forward we will need to impose a 3.5% fee on all credit and debit card transactions as a result of the overwhelming cost of card transactions. We get it, we use our cards too. We don’t like it either, but convenience does have a cost, and it’s 3.5%.
Grim – How about the 5% Employee Heath Benefit charge?
https://www.today.com/food/restaurants/restaurant-employee-health-fee-outcry-tiktok-rcna67485
What I said yesterday….bank crisis usually = deflationary impact.
“The FOMC can get back on track quickly if appropriate, and the banking stress could have disinflationary effects.”
Grim,
Look up FedNow. Is coming in the summer. Don’t know the specifics, but is Federal Reserve direct link between parties bank.
This might make Twitter a payment app. Plus from what I read might affect card fees income for banks like you posted above.
Think about a name or number displayed above your cash register to pay the bill instantly.
I predict the Square side of Block is going to be in for a world of pain in the next few years.
Brutal monetization of the platform is leaving Square customers with a really bad taste. You can’t go two or three months without a previously free feature becoming paid, or a critical feature being shifted from the low tier price to the high tier price.
Let”s touch on a few of these.
Tip Splitting on Square now requires moving from Shifts to Shifts Plus. For my place, that means $546 more in Square fees a year. I get absolutely no new functionality at this price, or any additional “value”.
Not to mention that, but the way reservations work in Square is that each table reservation is setup as an employee, who gets scheduled through Appointments. So that means another $600 or so in Shifts Plus surcharges for these faux employees required to get Appointments to work.
Oh yeah, starting April 1st, appointments plus will be required, which now costs $29 a month, another $350 a year. They could easily build “reservations”, the functionality is trivial – but I’m sure their finance loves the “reservations hack”, because it’s making them a ton of money now.
So we’re talking something like $1,500 more a year to any typical bar or restaurant that uses Square.
We’re turning reservations off, at that price it just doesn’t pay to offer the ability to make a reservation automatically.
This area is ripe for competition, for years Square owned this space, it was silly to even attempt to compete. Not so anymore. Bring ’em on.
We covered FedNow instant payments.
It will favor the banks first and then credit cards companies.
It literally a Bank—>Bank instant payments based on the ISO 20022 standards to replace SWIFT to make it instant.
Nonbanks DO NOT have access to the new real-time payments network.
They are busy lobbying for it in DC via their various K street firms like the “The Financial Technology Association” which represents g Block, Marqeta, Stripe and Wise, among others.
The law may need to force the Feds to allow the non-banks to participate or perhaps merge etc.
The payments industry and the banks have created a rival The Clearing House’s called the RTP Network.
Again massive amounts of fees here up for grabs as the government does pick winners and losers. Just like in China.
Grim,
You don’t realize this is how technology companies work by now? Look at uber….was stupid cheap when it came out. They took out competition, and when the service becomes mainstream, they get their money back for the subsidized initial cost. Get you addicted, and then you can’t get off.
As much as you hate these services as an owner, you are f/ked. Why? Your customers will demand it. This CC fee for customers is ridiculous. Get us used to using a CC and now just charge a fee all of sudden? What bs.
Speaking of Credit Cards. I rarely open the letters they send.
For giggles I opened one yesterday.. 28.24% APR.
Yeah..cash is king.
Everybody wants to be the toll taker.
Juice,
You think the CCP is what’s preventing WeChat from monetizing their payments services more?
I’ll try to find the information I read on the topic. As far as the app store commission, which of the items you listed does that fall under… is it the last one?
Juice Box says:
March 21, 2023 at 8:27 am
Joyce – It’s not unlawful for major online platforms to engage in those conducts.
Apple’s app store and payments for example. One of the worst. You must pay thru Apple services if listed on the store and all in-app purchases must pay them a huge commission a 30 percent cut.
Over a parking spot, geez, this lady with a bat. Sugar, spice, and everything??? Now I could understand this attitude towards a banker who stole all of my money……
ttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11884211/Man-left-bloodied-brain-damage-couple-attacks-Queens-parking-spot.html#v-8210309992311832733
On April 1 – Visa and Mastercard will start charging an additional $0.10 for contactless MSD transactions. I’ll spare you the minutiae, but there are two types of contactless – MSD and ESV. You’d have no idea which is used when looking at the card, so it’s impossible to discriminate. If you have a card system older than 2019, you’ll likely start seeing these fees if you support touch payment.
On a small transaction, say $10, this represents a huge surcharge increase – another full percent.
By the way – another Square fun-fact. If you set it up to allow for tableside ordering via phone (QR-Code Style) – every order placed through mobile is charged as a single transaction (nothing is aggregated into a single tab). That means every additional order gets hit with a $0.10 processing fee.
Had a table of 8 that all used their phones to order, each one of them. Just that table alone generated like 25 credit card transactions in a single sitting, every single one of them requiring the per swipe transaction fees.
Oof.
Not surprised why places like Rutt’s Hut take cash only.
I wish businesses would just raise their prices 3.5% across the board – that way I don’t need to get pissed every time I get charged to use my credit card. It would be a hidden fee.
Especially like it when places like Kinchley’s in Ramsey (cash only) have their own ATM in the lobby – with a $6 surcharge.
No One – Beijing heavily pressures everyone to follow the party policies. If they don’t they get the Jack Ma treatment of worse. Again so if you did not know they cancelled Jack Ma’s payment IPO of Ant Group. Employees there are now sitting around headquarters and sleeping.
The Chinese tech companies used to be walled gardens like Apple or Amazon etc here. Now Chinese regulators are forcing their giants like Alibaba and Tencent to integrate and they are picking the winners. They forced Alibaba to take WePay.
Don’t like the fees, blame your lawmakers.
Joyce “Self-preferencing” You can only use Apples payment services on their platform, and there will be no negotiation of terms. The price is the price take it or GTFO.
In America financial crime is not considered real crime.
CEO bankrupts pension plan, gets slap on the wrist, Employees go broke, don’t have money for healthcare, some get divorced, some commit suicide.
That’s real death. They should treat them like getaway car drivers, you are part of the crime. Someone kills themselves because you bankrupted their retirement, you get the death penalty.
And who allows this? It’s legal, right??
Juice Box says:
March 21, 2023 at 9:48 am
Joyce “Self-preferencing” You can only use Apples payment services on their platform, and there will be no negotiation of terms. The price is the price take it or GTFO.
re: “places like Rutt’s Hut take cash only”
Yes don’t want to pay the vig to the credit card mafia and while we are at it the tax man.
There is a hot dog truck near me, parked on the NJ Transit lot by the tracks. Cash only and super busy. I never see him ring a register. Hot dogs are Meh..I bet Chicago likes them… $3.50 a dog any topping..
Nothing stopping you from doing the same is there? Every day you make a choice.
grim says:
March 21, 2023 at 9:37 am
Not surprised why places like Rutt’s Hut take cash only.
Phoenix re: And who allows this? It’s legal, right??
Did you not see the South Park episode on terms and conditions?
https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/mqk1s7/south-park-you-didn-t-read-it
20 years ago, when Ron Paul proposed to remove the income tax, the response from media was, “that would create a trillion dollar hole”. He said…well just cut all this overseas military spending and now it’s plugged. And we have that hole anyway with the tax now.
Juice Box says:
March 21, 2023 at 9:52 am
Yes don’t want to pay the vig to the credit card mafia and while we are at it the tax man.
Why do you think Musk gets away with what he does? PayPal gave both himself and the government a cash flow from Ebay.
Google can have all of your data, as long as they allow the government to unfettered access to it.
That’s what Elon is best at, creating a business where he can show the government how they can both profit in some way from what he is doing.
Juice,
That’s why i hate paying cash. Let this mofo not pay taxes? Why don’t i get paid in cash then?
War gives Americans a hard on. It’s so embedded in our society now that it will become even more hardcore right on our streets.
Watching that lady go all caveman over a parking spot. Bet he never thought that would happen to him on that day.
Well, actually, I bet he isn’t thinking about much anymore. I could easily see him as an organ donor.
Actually, I hadn’t. That’s nasty and hilarious at the same time.
Juice Box says:
March 21, 2023 at 9:55 am
Phoenix re: And who allows this? It’s legal, right??
Did you not see the South Park episode on terms and conditions?
Phoenix – You mention Paypal.
How do you tell a Polish, Ukrainian and German walk into the room joke?
Answer very carefully.
Paypal 1.0 was Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek all from those European parents I mentioned above. Elon came later, and was kicked out too.
Anyway it used to be you needed 100 Million to be considered a player in Silicon Valley. That became a Billion and then a 100 Billion and now the new benchmark is going to be a Trillion.
Don’t hate the player hate the game. Example If Valley National Bank goes under you won’t be getting back more than $250,000. So what if ever town and county government in Northern NJ uses them to keep the toilets flushing and roads cleared of snow and cops and teachers paid. They are not systemically important only Silicon Valley….
Donnie hires the best lawyers. Here is his current one making the case for the prosecution.
Palmer Report @PalmerReport
Donald Trump’s current criminal defense attorney Joe Tacopina went on TV a few years ago and spelled out Trump’s guilt in the Stormy Daniels case. Trump apparently didn’t know about it when he recently hired the guy. This is beyond hilarious!
https://twitter.com/PalmerReport/status/1637998902636089346
BTW – Anecdotal on North Jersey housing.
The 24 hour flippers have hired telemarketers to call every grandma around offering cash to sell their homes and quickly.
Advise grandma to tell the telemarketers to make their best and final offer in writing then hang up.
I see more and more places starting to add a 3.5% surcharge to pay with a card. I dont mind it as my father always taught me to pay cash so that spending is real to you.
Its funny that 10c a gallon to pay with a card is now standard across the board. Those places that tout same price cash or credit are usually just 10c more than the independents,
The Stormy Daniels payment was the worst dirt they were able to dig up on Trump? That’s it? That’s what they’ve got?
He’s going to walk.
Grandpa will get duped out of his house by a woman, but Grandma won’t allow you to pry that house out of her arthritic fingers.
Its funny that 10c a gallon to pay with a card is now standard across the board. Those places that tout same price cash or credit are usually just 10c more than the independents,
Not really. I purchase a fair amount of gasoline. Plenty of places are both competitive and charge the same price or less.
What I have noticed, however, is wide swings in gas prices day to day.
re: Surcharges.
Who said Justice was speedy?
Again terms and conditions between merchants and MC/VISA they weren’t allowed to do it until the merchants sued MC/VISA about 10 years ago. It was appealed by MC/VISA only got to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit like LAST WEEK lol.
https://www.paymentcardsettlement.com/en
Congress has been sitting on their thumbs…We have not had any reform really since Dodd/Frank. Finance always invents new ways to make money. Might be time for some new legislation but not before a few banks fail and the masses start crying about losing their life’s savings.
Never let a good crisis go to waste.
This is part of the plan, this “bank failure” thing.
Some, those in the know, will profit handsomely from this. It’s no accident.
The losers will be the hardworking middle class, as you have to steal from someone, and the poor ain’t got nothin’ to steal.
I have my spots in Wayne that are same price cash and credit….and beat the chit out the price on their competition. Sunoco 94 is 3.78….cash or credit. Meanwhile, other stations charging like 4.40 in other towns. F that.
Honestly, it might be time to send a message and start paying cash. F your tips too for doing what you are supposed to be doing. See how long those fees last.
I just like how my spending is organized with a CC. Know exactly what I spent on for the year. But that’s not worth 3.5% of my spending.
Boils my blood when a business tries to pass off CC costs to me. I get it, but it still boils my blood. That’s bs….that means the business gets the full advantage of using Credit card system, but pay nothing for it. F that. That helps organize the sales big time for the business. Why should customer pay it all?
“Its funny that 10c a gallon to pay with a card is now standard across the board. Those places that tout same price cash or credit are usually just 10c more than the independents,”
.that means the business gets the full advantage of using Credit card system, but pay nothing for it.
You have a good point on this, Pumps.
As Fab’s father taught him ” pay cash so that spending is real to you” there is a psychology to this. Impulse buying.
If there was no benefit to credit cards, merchants wouldn’t use them.
Maybe the lobby arm of the “Merchants of America” should go complain, or pass a large enough envelope (with fat stacks) to their politicians and get the laws changed.
re: “purchase a fair amount of gasoline”
My FIL just got the new Jeep Hybrid. 25 miles on a charge. Using my advice he asked a local electrical to install a NEMA 14-50 plug in garage to charge it quickly. 110 volt charge is 12 hours, but only 2 hour max charge time on 22o volts, so now they can take as many local trips no need for gasoline. They are retired and don’t drive very far anymore. This will save them some actual money, as well they have always leased forever and ever.
Not a bad deal for a $60,000 SUV Grand Cherokee. $409 per month for 24 months.
FYI sleepy Joe’s Inflation Reduction act passes on a $7,500 Lease Credit to buy aka lease American built electric vehicles.
Gas buddy…NJ $2.93 Lowest $3.22 Average. Costco is at $3.13 a gallon by me.
Juice,
Not everyone owns a house. Unless you own a house a plug in vehicle is useless.
The discount of owning one is paying a reasonable rate to charge it, and the only place to do that without someone giving you the reach-around is in your own effing garage.
grim – re: “He’s going to walk.”
Setting aside legal delays and attempt to get the case tossed the Jury Pool is only Manhattan. Not too many MAGA folks living in Manhattan, especially ones that can take time off from work to sit through what will take months. Heck some jurors may even have been screwed one time or another by Trump.
Any bookies taking odds yet?
Grim,
There have been no leaks from the DAs office so no-one knows what will be in the charging docket. We know Stormy will be there as she and Cohen testified to the GC last week. I think the charges will be lit and it will be more than just Donnie. 25 indictments were sealed coming out of Muller. Only a few such as Weissenberg the accountant were unsealed. I’ll go with the 3 kids, Calamari and Rudy.
Grab popcorn.
Sleepy Joe gets verbally pounded by a Vet. He deserved it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/11wx5lw/millions_are_dead_in_iraq_we_actually_fought_in/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Okay, got it. You’re saying that payments within the 3rd party app. I would think the Sherman, Clayton and Robinson-Patman acts would prohibit most of these behaviors, but they are not enforced. Didn’t find the two articles I read yet… it was a while back.
It’s similar to when we previously discussed HFT and that the existing laws could easily handle the phantom trades that have no intention of ever being executed… but they are not enforced.
Juice Box says:
March 21, 2023 at 9:48 am
Joyce “Self-preferencing” You can only use Apples payment services on their platform, and there will be no negotiation of terms. The price is the price take it or GTFO.
I am grandfathered in on an Amex card that gives me 6% back gas, groceries and drugstores. Then there are the incredibly lucrative cashback deals from Capital One Shopping, sometimes up to 30% back, often at department stores and 15% back for travel sites like Expedia, Booking, Travelocity, etc.
If you do not have at least 10 credit cards you regularly use, you are losing thousands of dollars a year. Sometimes, tens of thousands, when you take advantage of new credit card promos.
I have four Chrome extensions which find me the best cash back discounts automatically. Ibotta, Rakuten, RetailMeNot and Capital One. They automatically try all of the promo and coupon codes as well.
When grocery shopping, I always start with Living Rich With Coupons which adds about a half an hour to my shopping time, but usually saves us anywhere from 30 to 50% off of our grocery shopping orders. That’s on top of the 6% I get for using my credit card. Primarily, the deals come from FETCH, which is automatic and Ibotta, which requires you to upload the receipt.
I kid you not. In 17 years, my Upromise rebates alone have compounded to over 50K.
None of this stuff is terribly time consuming either. In most cases, you just shop through a link.
We used to eat out for 50% off typically, but groupon and restaurant.com suck now. We don’t eat out much anymore as it’s simply too expensive and the food is rarely better than what we cook at home.
I really need to get around to writing a book on all of this.
When it’s all said and done, I bet I save between 10 and 20K a year over the average consumer. Sometimes, probably more.
Fab – re: no leaks
Baloney…It’s the talk of the town.
NBC News: Several sources familiar with the matter say do not expect developments Tuesday in the Trump grand jury matter. The next scheduled grand jury date is Wednesday. That is the earliest we may learn more as to what comes next.
@MSNBC
This gotta be expensive, all the overtime, the brass, padding of the pensions. Put a little more pressure on the taxpayers there. That many Jackboots don’t come cheap.
Entire 36,000-strong NYPD will be out in force today in anticipation of Trump’s arrest:
Boils my blood when a business tries to pass off CC costs to me. I get it, but it still boils my blood. That’s bs….that means the business gets the full advantage of using Credit card system, but pay nothing for it.
Sure, but realize that credit card fees have nearly doubled over the last 10 years, and continue to increase.
Is anyone forcing a business to accept a credit card?
If you don’t like the fees, don’t accept them. Or write, call, visit, email, text your state representative, Chamber of Commerce, do a TikTok video expressing your outrage, have a peaceful protest at the Capitol–
None of which, other than not accepting them, is going to make a single change as your government is under the control of corporate America.
“they can take as many local trips no need for gasoline”
This is bad for the car. You need to get the ICE up to temp on a regular basis to keep it healthy. It gets the oil up to temp to lubricate everything and also burn any vapor or moisture build up.
For the battery, dont keep it fully charged. Set your charge schedule to have it fully charged for the time you need it. If you leave for work at 7AM, set the schedule to have it fully charged by 6:30AM. Dont charge on the weekends. You should allow it to fully discharge on a regular basis.
Has anyone indicted Stormy for non payment of taxes on the income she received for her “services?”
Or did she pay the taxes in “services?”
“Is anyone forcing a business to accept a credit card?”
If you don’t, you will lose probably 80% of your customer base. Especially in the dining sector.
My favorite ‘didn’t read terms and conditions’ story:
https://www.rt.com/business/man-outsmarts-banks-wins-court-221/
Fabius Maximus says:
March 21, 2023 at 11:42 am
“they can take as many local trips no need for gasoline”
This is bad for the car. You need to get the ICE up to temp on a regular basis to keep it healthy. It gets the oil up to temp to lubricate everything and also burn any vapor or moisture build up.
They lease it. It will be under warranty the whole time.
It’s not like poor folk who have to run a car until it exhausts it’s last fuel mixture.
It breaks, they get a new one, with a new tax break from the government that those, like me, who cannot afford a house, cannot benefit from since we don’t have access to cheap electricity.
Libturd says:
March 21, 2023 at 11:45 am
“Is anyone forcing a business to accept a credit card?”
If you don’t, you will lose probably 80% of your customer base. Especially in the dining sector.
Then suck it up.
I don’t get to write off my mileage on my car. Or gas, or tires. Or depreciate it either.
Can’t fight city hall, or don’t want to.
At least the French have the stones to mobilize some sort of protest when their government outright screws them.
Not Americans that’s for sure. They would rather eat their own.
Fab it’s a lease any engine or electrical problems are for the next owner to deal with.
This message is brought to you buy Build Back Better Act and buy American cash for trash program.
Some Americans protest. Sadly, over the things that often will hurt them.
“That is the earliest we may learn more as to what comes” Yes that is the case. They meet Mondays and Wednesdays and people are reporting on who is going in or out of the room. They are not commenting on what is being said in the room.
Yesterday Donnie sent a lawyer to try and discredit Cohen. Cohen was on standby as rebuttal. There is a whole discussion on how that played out. All it did was kick the cycle another day.
Beware, argue the authors of a new book. Besuited jetsetters, armed with prestigious degrees and powerpoint slides, have infiltrated governments and corporations around the world. They claim to offer valuable expertise and fresh ideas. But don’t be fooled! The consulting industry, the authors argue, is selling snake oil that is poisoning governments and distorting economies.
The book is by economists Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington, and it has one of those titles that really drives home the authors’ argument. It’s called The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilizes Our Governments, and Warps Our Economies. It offers some provocative arguments against what you might call Big Consultant.
https://apple.news/AcRz-lCPpQSK7NWIiixs1kQ
Thoughts…
AMZN…would not exist if Bezos stuck to the original business plan of ecommerce sales, that business is still unprofitable. From informed third parties I know – in AWS and customers – in cloud there is basically AWS and everyone else, however, there seems to be a significant amount of cost consciousness coming to fore among customers…new term I learned was ‘forklifting’, basically just moving everything and sorting out later, for many companies in the current environment later is now…expecting downdraft in current customer margins. Basically an unprofitable utility (retail) mated to a high growth, best of breed tech company who may be feeling pressure near term. Upside is new monetization through retail ads.
GOOG…seems to have best of breed on the user interface, consumer technology, probably the best engineers working on their products, and the deepest home grown portfolio of future projects. Obviously the 800 lb gorilla in search so downside is theirs to own, where ever it may come from (regulation, AI, etc). Upside may be their cloud. Long term sustainability on the in-house research unlike META.
META…most exposed probably. I’ll get push back on this but as a corporate manager who actually is a real, current engineer in his product’s space (unlike say Musk re: Twitter) there is none better than Zuck in identifying big picture trends and pivoting. Problem is, whatever shortfall they have internally (engineer quality, who knows) their best ‘product development’ isn’t internal but M&A which is now DOA so they are going to be hamstrung going forward. Plus all the well known issues of privacy and pay squeezing him on others’ platforms. META is in harvest mode, but that is a long runway.
Wasn’t asked, but MSFT may be best of all.
Yep. AOL dial-up still in use by the likes of Gary.
Wasn’t he asking other day how to use Yahoo search?
grim says:
March 21, 2023 at 7:11 am
Realistically – no longer on top, it’s a long way down.
They destroy education…useless people telling you how you are doing it wrong. Meanwhile, who has the experience? The disrespect for teachers is annoying.
While the modern consulting industry has a history stretching back over a century, Mazzucato and Collington write that the use of consultants really exploded after the 1980s. That’s when proponents of freer markets, like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, began dismantling government bureaucracies and regulations. More left-leaning “Third Way” leaders, like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, continued in their wake. “Public sectors were transformed under the credo of New Public Management — a policy agenda that sought to make governments function more like businesses and diminished faith in the abilities of civil servants,” Mazzucato and Collington write.
As governments lost the faith and capacity to do things themselves, they increasingly turned to consultants to help them accomplish tasks. Governments began using consultants for seemingly everything, from devising new tax rules to advising armies to overseeing the privatization of state industries to administering IT departments to devising strategies on how to cut carbon emissions.
At the same time, private corporations also increasingly turned to consultants to help them become more profitable. And here, Mazzucato and Collington portray consultancies as opportunistically surfing wave after wave of destructive capitalism. McKinsey & Company, for example, was involved in the Enron scandal and profited from the opioid crisis, helping Purdue Pharma “turbocharge” sales of its OxyContin painkiller.
“The Big Con is of course not responsible for all the ills of modern capitalism, but it thrives on its dysfunctionalities — from speculative finance to the short-termist business sector and the risk-averse public sector,” Mazzucato and Collington write.
They ruined our govt. Making it into a business as opposed to a service. Profit profit profit. Losers. Do you think the chinese govt runs a profit on every govt program?
What’s the best wood deck stain stripper!
Love Kinchley’s, that was our special treat pizza growing up. They defintly did not use the cc savings to update the decor.
Grim,
How quick can you get to market?
https://www.roi-nj.com/2023/03/18/opinion/editors-desk/busted-bracket-beer-2-023-how-jersey-city-brewer-quickly-created-an-ipa-honoring-fdu-princeton/
$DNA .. the shorts are not shorting this because they think that DNA is going lower. Instead, they continue to short to keep the MP low while they figure out how to cover their 150-M short position. They’ve made $1.5-B on the ride from $12 to $1.30 (at least on paper) … and they risk losing a big chunk of those paper profits when DNA pops to $3 or $4 or $5 … so they are playing the game. Establishing a new “normal” under $2, and they hope that evolves into an opportunity to cover 100-M + shares. They’ve got huge dollars riding on getting out of DNA (i.e., covering) at low prices and they are being very aggressive with their short selling to “keep a lid” on the MP.
How is it that you pull the worse data and most impossible analysis off Twitter every single time?
DNA is not hard to borrow (HTB). That is your first signal that whatever ass clown typed the above is clueless. And its borrow rate has very reasonably been hanging around 2% APR. That is your second signal. Combining the two, I could have shorted in one trade yesterday 2.2m shares at that 2.0% APR. Lastly, I can assure with all certainty that anyone who shorted at 12 (or 11, or 10…) is out. You’ve made 90% of max profit, you’d be an idiot to still be in the trade. There is no ‘short attack’.
The only data point is that short interest and days to cover is slightly elevated which is likely what your yahoo is focused on. Again, unless and until you see HTB and higher borrow rates, not an issue.
Fire the photon torpedos.
Bard AI coming this week. No restriction on number of searches.
Oh, and possibly one of the stupidest lines I’ve every seen typed…”shorts are shorting DNA to keep the price low until they figure out how to cover…”
That is so insane I don’t know how respond other than…if 150m shares short want to cover here’s an idea….BUY….the stock is at 1.34 (near all time low) and averages 25 million shares A DAY…
Your Twidiot is literally too dumb to able to own a brokerage account….fucking idiot.
1987 condo says:
March 21, 2023 at 12:33 pm
What’s the best wood deck stain stripper!
Stomy Daniels. Strips like a tornado.
“Boils my blood when a business tries to pass off CC costs to me. I get it, but it still boils my blood.”
“Is anyone forcing a business to accept a credit card? If you don’t like the fees, don’t accept them.”
You guys realize that YOU are paying the fees? Regardless of whether they are broken out separately or not, right?
No different than Grim charging you for a fifth of hooch, only, and then adding $1.50 for the bottle it comes in…
Cost of doing business….passed on to the consumer. The reason merchants wanted it broken out – and the companies fought it – is that no one knew they were taking that big a skim and by exposing it maybe some market adjustments would happen.
I’m a lover of the wafer-thin style bar pie – the kind that’s a 3 bite slice.
That and a plastic pitcher of cheap domestic is one of my favorite meals.
You guys realize that YOU are paying the fees? Regardless of whether they are broken out separately or not, right?
The card promo arms race is directly linked to increases in card fees.
Ever wonder why your retailer didn’t take American Express? It was because historically they carried the highest fees, because they were the cards with the biggest benefits offered. This applied to Discover as well, which was one of the big early players in cash-back – but carried a higher interchange fee to support that.
The perks game is in full arms-race now. Customers pick cards based on the greatest benefit to them – there is huge incentive to offer more, and more, and more.
What’s that mean to fees? Up Up Up. Almost entirely unchecked.
I was going to say exactly the same regarding Amex’s lower acceptance at merchants but didn’t want to cloud my point that the fees – however stated – are ultimately paid by the consumer.
Point spot on Grim, we never took Amex for that reason, up to 6% all-in…just couldn’t price the product accurately enough for that kind of spread…so without the ability to pass it on, passed on taking Amex…
Actually, if I wanted to refine my statement as to who is paying, I would add that Phoenix and Pumpkin (complaining about 3.5% fees in general) are actually subsidizing Lib…each time Lib gets those fat percentages and tens of thousands of dollars back it’s coming out of the fees that those two pay which would otherwise be lower absent Lib’s huge rebates.
My merchant account statement (not Square) broke out each month fees by card and card type…so MC/Visa but then another eight lines or so of increasingly higher benefit cards…baseline card was cheap, IIRC barely pushing 2%, but then there were the super duper black anthracite Visas that were hitting at Amex type fees, raising the costs for everyone….
Grim, sounds like Star.
“What’s the best wood deck stain stripper!”
Stripping stain/paint sucks. It is often easier to just sand it off, but that depends on the design of the desk and how many tricky surfaces there are to sand. Often, I will just sand it the best I can and then will restain it or paint it. But I always put a coat of Liquid Sandpaper on it so the paint adheres. I have a pneumatic sprayer that I use for the repaint. Stain is easy enough to paint on and rub off with a rag. If there is varnish? Forget about it.
The reason I have such an elaborate spray painting setup is from dealing with so many failed stripping attempts. The better made the furniture is. The more difficult it becomes to strip. This was stained red and distressed. I tried everything to get the red off. It’s a $9,000 piece. I got it from a Montclair family for the cost of renting the Home Depot Truck $19.95!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/X6XeNu2ZLNmc1joX7
Flagship high-bonus cards indeed carry the largest fees – check page 7.
https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/visa-usa-interchange-reimbursement-fees.pdf
Thx Lib.
grim says:
March 21, 2023 at 1:57 pm
Flagship high-bonus cards indeed carry the largest fees – check page 7.
Same cards highest net worth individuals carry and profit from at the expense of those less fortunate.
I still think Stormy is the better stripper. Very pricey however.
Wasn’t he asking other day how to use Yahoo search?
No, it wasn’t Gary.
It was Ex that was asking how to use the search.
“Same cards highest net worth individuals carry and profit from at the expense of those less fortunate.”
Yup….What was AmEx’s advertising logo for, like, decades?
“Membership Has Its Privileges”.
Doesn’t take McGruff to figure that one out, they are literally telling you. Lol.
Maybe I don’t understand it. What is a short squeeze? If you have a billion worth of shares….how do you hold the price down to collect without driving it up by covering your shorts? Again, not saying I am correct, but I think this is the point of the post I shared. They are holding the price down to slowly liquidate their position without driving it up and creating a short squeeze.
Lefty, manipulation in stock prices is real. Short attacks are real. To say that DNA didn’t have a professional short attack is false. For god’s sake, the scorpion short report, which started this entire slide in the share price, was proven false…..too bad the damage is done. The pro shorts took her down big time.
leftwing says:
March 21, 2023 at 1:08 pm
Oh, and possibly one of the stupidest lines I’ve every seen typed…”shorts are shorting DNA to keep the price low until they figure out how to cover…”
That is so insane I don’t know how respond other than…if 150m shares short want to cover here’s an idea….BUY….the stock is at 1.34 (near all time low) and averages 25 million shares A DAY…
Your Twidiot is literally too dumb to able to own a brokerage account….fucking idiot.
What do you think Musk was doing with his tweets a couple years back? He was trying to f/k the shorts who were manipulating the stock down.
Look at AMC….completely manipulated in both directions. This is the reality of the market. Why price discovery is never ever on point….it’s always overvalued or undervalued. Thank day traders and hedge funds. Always playing games.
It wasn’t passed on…it is now being passed on. Gas didn’t have different prices for cash and credit. Restaurants didn’t have different prices for cash or credit. So I stand by my position….it’s now being shoved down the consumer’s throats. Just like these businesses kept raising prices because they could….and created the inflation that was nonexistent for almost 40 years.
“Cost of doing business….passed on to the consumer. The reason merchants wanted it broken out – and the companies fought it – is that no one knew they were taking that big a skim and by exposing it maybe some market adjustments would happen.”
It’s a zoo in here!!
Between, pandemic loans that never have to be paid back….to being able to raise prices for the first time in decades…..businesses and their owners absolutely killed it since 2021. They are the ones driving up all the luxury sales from rolex to cars….to driving up cost of vacations.
“They are holding the price down to slowly liquidate their position without driving it up and creating a short squeeze.”
Again, this makes no sense….they are adding to their shorts – holding prices down – so that they can liquidate their shorts? Do you read what you cut and paste?
I’m looking at Level 2 bid/ask data right now, I could dump 400,000 shares this exact second – this second, not over the day – and the market would absorb it with the price moving from 1.35 to only 1.39. There is no ‘squeeze’ FFS.
“Lefty, manipulation in stock prices is real. Short attacks are real.”
Never said they weren’t. But every Twidiot who has zero market experience and less than $1k in a Robin Hood account screams “shorts!” every time something happens contra to their position that they don’t understand…which is frequent, as they understand little.
“The pro shorts took [DNA] down big time.”
No DNA declined precipitously because it in the span of twelve months it cut its revenue forecasts by 50% directly impacting valuation, it cut them twice severely impacting management’s credibility, their corporate structure and manner of going public (SPAC) has left them with absolutely zero sponsorship on Wall Street (ie, there is literally no desk calling their clients when the price declines and pushing the stock), and when they listed they grabbed absolutely the most aggressive multiple possible…so to recap….
Opening price $10
Haircut revenue by 50%, take shares to $5
Haircut sector valuations by 50%, take shares to $2.50
Discount for lack of coverage and loss of management credibility, shares to $1.25
And…viola…they are trading at about $1.25 with upside as I said to mid 2s or so if they can fix their corporate management shitshow and relations with the Street….
It really is that simple.
There is no conspiracy.
Or, there is, but only among the grossly misinformed and ignorant.
“It wasn’t passed on…it is now being passed on. Gas didn’t have different prices for cash and credit. Restaurants didn’t have different prices for cash or credit.”
It was most certainly passed on…to say it wasn’t is to say the business owner was ignoring that credit card cost line, which at 3% or so of revenue is a very large and would not happen…
You said your wife was in financial planning in some corporate…ask her. If she has any familiarity with budgeting she will tell you…revenue lines are laid down and forecast, expense lines are laid down and forecast…
Whether any one line is broken out and billed separately is irrelevant…it’s in the p/l and accounted for….
It’s like going to your local tire shop and being pissed there are $40 of fees added on to your price of $800 on a tire change for disposal of old tires and fluids….you can see the two expense items broken down separately, or you can get one bill for a total of $840.
Either way, you’re paying for it.
Pumps, who ultimately pays a corporation’s taxes? The customers buying the products. By extension, who ultimately pays the cc fees?
It’s all passthrough.