off the highway hell —

 

 

 

Tiny rural idyll is transformed into buzzing boomtown where jobs market 'is going nuts' - but some locals are now furious at farmers for selling out: 'They hate us'

 

By James Cirrone

07:58 EDT 07 Jul 2024

 

 

Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and nearby rural towns like it are being drastically transformed into distribution hotspots for major retailers like Amazon and Walmart - to the dismay of some longtime residents.

 

 

more:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/article-13598085/online-shopping-warehouses-boost-job-market-us.html

John Deere laying off about 600 workers across Midwest; expanding Mexico facilities

https://fox8.com/news/john-deere-laying-off-about-600-workers-across-midwest-expanding-mexico-facilities/

$8 billion in stock buybacks stemming from a profit of $10 billion last year, and now many 100s of lives ruined. 

 

There have got to be consequences, whether legal or extrajudicial. This behavior is simply destructive.

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2024Jul 8 by TBideon

And the big corporations just get bigger -- what do you do with $billions?  (other than pay workers more)

 

Paramount buys Skydance for billions

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/paramount-media-empire-behind-cbs-070754828.html

 

Lilly buys Morphic for billions

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lilly-agrees-buy-us-biotech-110605998.html

 

Devon Energy buys Grayson Mills for billions

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/07/08/2909519/0/en/Devon-Energy-Announces-Strategic-Acquisition-in-the-Williston-Basin-and-Expands-Share-Repurchase-Authorization-by-67-Percent-to-5-Billion.html

 

Carlsberg buys Britvic for billions

https://fortune.com/europe/2024/07/08/carlsberg-4-2-billion-deal-pepsi-lipton-distributor-britvic-gen-z-alcoholic-drinks/

 

Stock buybacks continue to rebound

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/projected-buyback-revival-stands-bolster-us-stocks-2024-2024-02-02/

As someone in ag the John Deere news is not surprising. People don't like their big tractors anymore for various reasons. Those are the ones made in the U.S. Their little stuff (especially the cheap mowers they sell at big-box stores) still sells. Most of those are imports.

Edited July 8, 2024Jul 8 by GCrites

Interesting map showing agglomerations of economic productivity that represent 50 percent of world GDP. California would probably have been included if it wasn't so far separated from other productive regions of the USA.

 

 

Markets will be the s**ts tomorrow. Ugg.

5 hours ago, TBideon said:

Markets will be the s**ts tomorrow. Ugg.

 

Stock futures are on the rise. But we shall see.

Pre-market isn't bad. KJP, I'll gladly eat my hat if we start seeing some rebound from last week's s**tshow.

Everlasting jobstoppers: How an AI bot-war destroyed the online job market

 

While commentators were singing the praises of America’s labor resiliency, the first stage of the job-hunting meltdown was already showing. That stage came in the form of “ghost jobs,” posts by employers soliciting applications for positions that had already been filled, were never truly intended to be filled or had never really existed at all. While this practice had been expanding for years, its true severity was not well understood until Clarify Capital released a September 2022 survey of 1,045 hiring managers that was the first to focus specifically on the topic of ghost jobs.

Half the managers in question said that one emphatically ambiguous reason they would keep such job listings open indefinitely was because “The company was always open to new people.” That was actually one of the better answers on a list of very bad ones. A tie, at 43%, went to the next most-common responses, “To give the impression that the company is growing” and “To keep current employees motivated.” Perhaps the most infuriating replies came in at 39% and 33%, respectively: “The job was filled” (but the post was left online anyway to keep gathering résumés), and “No reason in particular.”

That’s right, all you go-getters out there: When you scream your 87th cover letter into the ghost-job void, there’s a one in three chance that your time was wasted for “no reason in particular.”...

 

...

"Like so many others, I’d missed the news that online thieves have not only leveled up their game, but they’ve put The Unemployed directly in their crosshairs. Armed with AI-driven interactive voice emulators, domain name spoofing, Python-powered web crawlers, the ability to post a fake job while posing as a real company, and some basic 3rd-grade distraction skills, scammers are winning in ways that would’ve seemed like science fiction just a few years ago.

In less than two weeks, I’d applied to, interviewed for, and succeeded in landing a job that didn’t actually exist.

In less than two seconds, I gave scammers everything they needed to secure loans, open utilities, get credit cards, score a Florida driver’s license, and gain access to my bank account."...

 

...

"Politicians are just talking about how the economy’s so great. I just wanna scream from the rooftops, "Then how come no one can find a job?"

It’s over sixty applications within fourteen days."

 

"You know how many companies got back to me? [Three.] You know how many interviews I’ve done so far? Just [one] … I do my interview, they said they had a couple more interviews to conduct and then they’ll call Monday or Tuesday and let me know. That was almost two weeks ago… I’ve been ghosted. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been ghosted."

 

https://www.salon.com/2024/07/28/everlasting-jobstoppers-how-an-ai-bot-destroyed-the-online-job-market/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

 

 

Unfortunately this hammers home how Sysephian it can be try to get a private sector white-collar job through online job listings without knowing anyone that already works there. It's not just ghost jobs but also scams and AI lockouts. That's how companies get the reputation of being full of sub-optimal nepo babies. Meanwhile blue-collar jobs have to try and pull people in off the street with shepherd's canes.

As of August 8th, 30-year mortgage interest rates have fallen to slightly under 6.5%.  That's a $5K per year saving on a half-million dollar balance, compared to a year ago.  That should put some juice into home buying.

Can't hurt but the selling prices, at least in desirable areas, still need a dramatic drop for sellers to unload

33 minutes ago, TBideon said:

Can't hurt but the selling prices, at least in desirable areas, still need a dramatic drop for sellers to unload

We haven't seen even a hint of that where I live (Wash DC burbs).

We probably won't so much in growing areas.

It's still the economy, stupid...

 

JUST IN: The US economy added 254K jobs in September – smashing expectations after a jump from 159K in August (with both July & August revised up). 💪

Unemployment drops to 4.1%. 📉

Wages up 4% over the past year, outpacing inflation at 2.5%.

 

https://meidasnews.com/news/254k-jobs-added-in-september-blowing-past-all-expectations

 

 

 

The U.S. economy expanded at a slightly slower but still solid pace in the third quarter, buoyed by faster consumer spending. Gross domestic product — a gauge of goods and services produced — grew at an annualized rate of 2.8% in the July through September period, compared to 3% in the second quarter, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Those figures were adjusted for inflation and seasonality. Consumer spending rose 3.7%, the most since early last year. Meanwhile, a measure of inflation was up 2.2%, around the Federal Reserve's target level.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/us-economy-posts-solid-growth-7003514/

3 hours ago, KJP said:

The U.S. economy expanded at a slightly slower but still solid pace in the third quarter, buoyed by faster consumer spending. Gross domestic product — a gauge of goods and services produced — grew at an annualized rate of 2.8% in the July through September period, compared to 3% in the second quarter, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Those figures were adjusted for inflation and seasonality. Consumer spending rose 3.7%, the most since early last year. Meanwhile, a measure of inflation was up 2.2%, around the Federal Reserve's target level.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/us-economy-posts-solid-growth-7003514/

And the campaign has done a terrible job of communicating these positive numbers. Only a campaign that actually doesn't like America would keep telling lies about what a success we are. Even more so in comparison to most countries economies.

How's the economy? Depends on your politics. Next: is water wet?

 

 

On 10/30/2024 at 3:31 PM, TheCOV said:

And the campaign has done a terrible job of communicating these positive numbers. Only a campaign that actually doesn't like America would keep telling lies about what a success we are. Even more so in comparison to most countries economies.

 

People disregard numbers that don't reflect their experience. To quote my non-economist wife, "All I know is the grocery bill used to be $80-90 a week and now it's $120-130 a week." Of course, food doesn't count in the inflation numbers; and yet it's probably the most obvious cost in a household budget.  (She still voted for Harris.)

Stock dump warning ⚠️ 

 

 

 

Circulated on one of my professional newsfeeds:

 

 

The precipitous drop in the red line (student loan delinquencies) starting in 2020 is of course the substantial acceleration in student loan forgiveness and hardship discharges under the Biden administration.

 

But the more interesting lines are the orange (mortgage) and purple (HELOC) lines, and they represent why I'm still optimistic for at least economic stability for most people in the immediate years ahead, notwithstanding surging residential real estate prices.  I think some people jittery about housing affordability worry that we must be getting close to another 2008-2009 bubble.  Thus far, we're not.  Of course, it could still happen, and the peak times for those delinquencies occurred in 2010, a year after the Great Recession had hit in late 2008/early 2009.  So it's not a leading indicator, but it's not a strongly trailing one, either--those curves had definitely bent upward well prior to the Great Recession, they just hadn't peaked yet.

 

On the other hand, credit card delinquencies are above where things were before the 2008 crisis, and I don't even know if there's any particular form of debt that would form the bulk of the increasing "other" line if separately broken out.  Medical debt not otherwise reflected in other categories?  The feed that sent me the chart didn't send me any kind of breakout for that, or for any other component, for that matter, just the raw chart from the New York Fed.

It would be tough for mortgage debt to do a 2008 under current housing supply constraints.

22 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

Circulated on one of my professional newsfeeds:

 

 

The precipitous drop in the red line (student loan delinquencies) starting in 2020 is of course the substantial acceleration in student loan forgiveness and hardship discharges under the Biden administration.

 

But the more interesting lines are the orange (mortgage) and purple (HELOC) lines, and they represent why I'm still optimistic for at least economic stability for most people in the immediate years ahead, notwithstanding surging residential real estate prices.  I think some people jittery about housing affordability worry that we must be getting close to another 2008-2009 bubble.  Thus far, we're not.  Of course, it could still happen, and the peak times for those delinquencies occurred in 2010, a year after the Great Recession had hit in late 2008/early 2009.  So it's not a leading indicator, but it's not a strongly trailing one, either--those curves had definitely bent upward well prior to the Great Recession, they just hadn't peaked yet.

 

On the other hand, credit card delinquencies are above where things were before the 2008 crisis, and I don't even know if there's any particular form of debt that would form the bulk of the increasing "other" line if separately broken out.  Medical debt not otherwise reflected in other categories?  The feed that sent me the chart didn't send me any kind of breakout for that, or for any other component, for that matter, just the raw chart from the New York Fed.

The increase in credit card and other debt could be a sign of trouble. I wonder if people who might be struggling are paying on their secured debt (mortgage and HELOC) while forgoing unsecured. That is not a bad strategy is one is struggling financially. But very low delinquency on mortgage debt is a positive sign. I thought auto loans would be doing worse but they seem to be performing within their normal delinquency rates. 

 

I thought Trump was bringing down the price of eggs?

And the Russo-Ukrainian war would be over in 24 hours.

 

What MAGA reactively calls the Deep State, those who decide to patiently learn about the world call it the realities of complex systems.

 

Few things are more complex than the global economy. And we cannot disconnect from it, even if we go full North Korea.

31 minutes ago, DarkandStormy said:

 

I thought Trump was bringing down the price of eggs?

Bird flu is the cause; "ten million chickens goin' to the dickens."  Should be a temporary price bulge - but where have we heard that before?

These bird flu outbreaks seems to be happening quite often. And every day there seems to be some product being recalled.  What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here?

1 hour ago, LibertyBlvd said:

These bird flu outbreaks seems to be happening quite often. And every day there seems to be some product being recalled.  What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here?

 

Maybe the overuse of antibiotics and the horrific and unsanitary conditions for the animals are catching up with us?  Just guessing, though.

2 hours ago, LibertyBlvd said:

These bird flu outbreaks seems to be happening quite often. And every day there seems to be some product being recalled.  What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here?

 

It's basically all the same outbreak. It's been going on with a fury for nearly three years now. My understanding is that there are issues with attempting mass vaccination, so instead of attempting herd immunity, they just cull entire infected flocks and then start over. It's like a game of whack-a-mole. And the fact that it spreads so well among mammals now makes it really hard to insulate the chicken populations.

This is the best-run company on earth. It has a custom-made exemption for its product category from the tariffs. It already has full alternative supply chains up and running in India and Vietnam. It has months of inventory ready to go.

And it'sstill going to lose $1 billion per quarter because of these tariffs. Small companies don't stand a chance.

But we need to make our new Robber Barons overlords happy. They are the geniuses with the god-given right to rule over us. They will guide us midwits to a new future full of robots and crypto! These Übermenschen will save us. But first, they need tariff revenue for their tax cuts...

Apple has managed tariffs so far, but Cook lacks long-term answers

CNBC

Apple has managed tariffs so far, but Cook lacks long-ter...

The vast majority of Apple's products are "currently not subject" to Trump's tariffs, CEO Tim Cook said. But beyond June, he didn't say much.

Great! The easiest way to stop Trump is to stop the US consumer. Nothing says America more than people spending money on (more) useless sh*t. Woe to the person getting in their way.

4 hours ago, cadmen said:

Great! The easiest way to stop Trump is to stop the US consumer. Nothing says America more than people spending money on (more) useless sh*t. Woe to the person getting in their way.

Let's keep this focused on US business/economy trends.

What do you mean other countries will just buy from each other rather than us? Subaru Canada To Start Importing Most Foresters From Japan Instead Of Just The U.S. Due To Trump Tariffs Read More: https://www.jalopnik.com/1849076/subaru-canada-importing-foresters-from-japan-not-us/