“Poor kids, wretched of the earth, why should we feed you? Why shouldn't we empty our sea of bullets into your swollen bellies or poison you with toxic chemicals or depleted uranium? Why should we care, we who are living well?
Where is it written in stone that you deserve better? Or that we are not animals subject to the law of nature: kill or be killed?
You suspect us of being cruel, but we are kind. Our god tells us so. It is yours that lies.
So you cry at night, shivering in the cold or sell yourselves for a slice of bread. What is that to those of us who are living well?”
“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special. I just got one last thing... I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have.”
"We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don't imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of any régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency."
Lessons from Baltimore's elitist slumlords and blah-blah know-it-alls...
by Bill Bonner
Baltimore, Maryland - "News flash from Reuters: “Shares of Target Corp. tumbled 13.1% after the big-box retailer forecast a surprise drop in holiday quarter sales.” While sales figures looked fairly good for October, shoppers are having a hard time keeping up the pace. Seeking Alpha: "Credit card balances rose by $38B during the quarter and 15% Y/Y, the largest boost in more than 20 years."
Wages have been trailing inflation for 19 straight months. Diesel fuel – the stuff that powers our economy – is becoming scarce, with the average price at the pump up to $5.35/gallon. Producer prices – as opposed to consumer prices – show a lot more inflation coming down the pike. Retailers are wondering if Santa will come this year…
Slumlords Elites: Our subject is the destruction of America’s middle class. How? Why? Let’s look: An incident from long ago…Our first office in Baltimore was in a very down-at-the-heels neighborhood. The building was a dump. But the city had offered to sell it to us for $100. As it turned out, we paid too much.
Not far away was the area known as “Lil’ Italy,” which was known for its good restaurants. It was also the safest part of the city; the Italians had baseball bats, and during the riots of 1968, for example, they stood guard. Nobody got hurt. No windows were broken in Lil’ Italy.
Between our office and Lil’ Italy were ‘housing projects’ – high rise horrors where ‘poor’ people lived. The area was so dangerous that even the cops locked their car doors when driving through. One day, we decided to take the whole staff – about 6 people – to lunch in Lil’ Italy, which meant walking by ‘the projects.’ While doing so, a police car suddenly pulled up. “What the hell do you think you’re doin’,” said the cop, yelling through the open window. “You should know better. If anything happens to you, I’m going to call it a suicide.” At least the Baltimore police still had a sense of humor back then. But here is the backstory on “the projects.”
Blah-Blah Know-it-Alls: One of the on-going conflicts of modern public life takes place between the know-it-all elites…and the middle-class, ‘common’ man. The know-it-alls are typically better educated, more media savvy…able to stand on a platform and give blah-blah answers to questions they know nothing about.
“Baltimore was like the maternity ward for the American row house,” explained a friend yesterday. “The row house was a great success…for the builders and for the families that lived in them. They didn’t take up much space…but they left people with space of their own…usually including a backyard where they could have a few vegetables, keep a few chickens…and have a backyard barbecue. Then, along came the urban planners. They thought people – especially poor people – should live in high-rise tenements. So, in vast urban improvement campaigns, they tore down the row houses and put up big-box warrens for people to live in.”
How did that work out? Take a look. Here is what happened to the ‘projects’ near our office:
Full screen recommended.
The Baltimore row house was where the middle class lived. The husband went to work in the factories and warehouses. The wife stayed at home….and scrubbed the white marble steps on the weekends. It was not a perfect set-up, but they were clean and safe…and what people wanted. And from the end of WWII to the 1970s…Baltimore’s middle class prospered. Wage earners sell their time, and time became more and more valuable.
But now, here in Charm City, the middle class has practically disappeared from the houses that once knew them. They’ve moved to the suburbs – largely to escape the crime and taxes of the city. The factories have mostly gone cold and silent too. In their places are high rise office towers, more or less emptied out in the Covid Hysteria of 2020.
Elite planners always think they know best. Their victims? The middle class. In business, they bring the latest business school BS. In government, they push whatever claptrap is trending in elite circles. And in the investment world…they pile on. Dot.coms…mortgage finance…ESG…cryptos – whatever the fad is, they’re on it, developing products that are sold to investors as the ‘next new thing.’
Thanks to their fake dollars – introduced in 1971 – real middle- class incomes peaked in 1975 and have been flat or falling ever since. Thanks to their wars – against drugs, poverty, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia – thousands of middle- class young people have been killed, mutilated, or impoverished…and $31 trillion was added to the national debt. And now, thanks to their inflation and energy policies, the American middle class may be doomed. Prices will rise. Incomes will lag even further. The poor will get more and more free stuff from the government. And the rich will find ways to protect their wealth…and even grow richer (when the Fed begins pumping out money again, they’ll be first in line to get it).
But the people in between…the millions of people who earn their money honestly….who bus and tote…who toil and spin…who schlep and sweat, what happens to them?
Middle Class Delanda Est: Yesterday, we looked at how the Roman empire destroyed its middle classes. War and inflation have always been the leading ways to ruin a country. Both hit the middle classes especially hard…and then, without a strong middle class, the country itself stumbles and falls.
You can see the phenomenon today in high inflation countries. In Venezuela, the rich were able to dodge inflation with bank accounts in Miami. The poor had nothing to lose. But the middle class was almost wiped out.
In Argentina, the process is less dramatic. But there too, inflation is said to be approaching 100% per year. The rich are moving their money to safety (after so many years of financial crises, they know what to do.) The poor rely on welfare payments (moving between dozens of confusing ‘plans’). And the middle class, where can they move? What can they do? They sell their time. What do they do when time becomes less valuable?"
"In today's vlog we are at Kroger and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"
"Russian Normal, Typical Hypermarket Tour After 9 Months of Sanctions"
"Walking together with me through a Russian TYPICAL Hypermarket in Moscow, Russia. Let's see what is for sale after 9 month of Sanctions in this Russian Hypermarket. What will it look like?" (One ruble equals 0.016 United States Dollars.)
"Bill Bonner wrote to his readers after the FTX crypto fiasco last week: Three trends made the period of 1980 to 2022 one of the most investment-friendly episodes in history. Cheap energy… cheap labor (mostly from China)... and cheap credit, in the form of ultra-low interest rate loans. “But now,” says Bonner, “all three of these trends have radically reversed.”
You can see the wreckage beginning to pile up all around us...The cryptocurrency company FTX, for example, which at one point was worth $32 billion and counted Blackrock and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan as shareholders, recently went bust. The billions in losses from this collapse are just beginning to be tallied.
Before that, nearly half of England's 400 pension funds almost collapsed. They were saved only by the intervention of the country's central bank. (Click here for the full story.)
Then, there are the formerly “hot” tech businesses like Carvana, a company that was being touted as a way to reinvent the car business. It's fallen 98% in roughly a year... and is on the verge of bankruptcy. Many more former tech darlings, like Arrival (electric cars), Vapotherm (healthcare), and Porch (home buying and selling) are also all down more than 95% in the past year.
But here's the really scary part...According to Bill Bonner, “these collapses and bankruptcies are just getting started.” In fact, Bonner says the next big bankruptcy and next big collapse is likely to come from a place few people are even thinking about right now. Bonner says this looming fall is going to catch almost everyone by surprise and could lead to some very difficult years in America.
"Straight Calls with Douglas Macgregor - Your home for analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States and the world.Geopolitics. No ego descriptions. No small talk. Straight to the point. Calls with the relevant analysis only."
"We’re being hit on each and every front. And people will be in absolute shock when they get hit by the avalanche of price increases that will make virtually every aspect of our lives even more expensive. We’re being warned by energy providers, industry executives, farmers, grocers, and virtually everyone in the industry that more shortages and price hikes are headed our way. Millions of Americans are so broke right now that they’re taking two or three jobs, and still they aren’t being able to make ends meet. We’re being economically destroyed and the facts we’re going to expose in this video show that we do have a lot to worry about. Before moving on, support us with a thumbs up, and make sure you subscribe to keep tuned for our next videos!
For those who live in rural areas, are you ready to pay between $850 and $950 on energy this winter? And for the ones who live in urban and suburban areas, are you okay with paying between $1,300 and $1,800 to heat your home in the next few months? Because those are the amounts you’re going to have to disburse if you want to keep the lights on and stay warm during the colder months, according to the Energy Information Association.
Natural gas is the substance that powers our electric grid, and a shortage of the fuel is driving electricity prices to extraordinary levels. About half of the nation relies on nat gas as the primary source of home heating, as revealed by the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 American Community Survey. The EIA is saying that we’re going to face a nearly 30% increase in energy costs when temperatures start to drop. And that’s actually the best-case scenario. If national reserves drop even further, expect that rate to go even higher.
Higher energy prices are going to hit us in a whole host of different ways. We’re about to face sticker shock at the gas stations again, airlines may be forced to scale back on flights, freight prices will go through the roof, farming will become more expensive than it already is, and at the bottom of the economic chain is the end consumer, who is going to absorb all of these costs.
One trucking company said that they’ve never seen prices jump this high, this fast: “Customers really don’t want to hear it, but fuel prices are going through the roof so we’re having to charge more,” said John Migliorini, vice president of Lakeville Trucking in Rochester, N.Y., where diesel costs have nearly doubled to about $400,000 a month. “What choice do we have? I’ve never seen prices jump this high, this fast.” “We’re going to get hit on every front, on every expense possible,” warned Oklahoma farmer Ben Neal, “From fertilizers to fuel to labor, insurance – everything in between, including our packing supplies.”
Crops need to be transported to processors and final markets and the skyrocketing fuel costs to power the trucks, trains, barges, and ships to make that happen means that, at the end of the day, groceries are going to be getting more expensive. A lot more expensive.
Just imagine what may happen to your family members, co-workers, neighbors, the teachers of your kids, the cashiers at your local stores, the people who are trying to retire, and those who are already living on the edge of society. It is going to be brutal. What we are watching play out in front of us should sadden our entire nation, because everyone will be affected, and the next one could be you."
“Scanning the skies for galaxies, Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson and colleagues identified some 100 compact groups of galaxies, now appropriately called Hickson Compact Groups. The four prominent galaxies seen in this intriguing telescopic skyscape are one such group, Hickson 44, about 100 million light-years distant toward the constellation Leo. The two spiral galaxies in the center of the image are edge-on NGC 3190 with its distinctive, warped dust lanes, and S-shaped NGC 3187. Along with the bright elliptical, NGC 3193 at the right, they are also known as Arp 316.
The spiral in the upper left corner is NGC 3185, the 4th member of the Hickson group. Like other galaxies in Hickson groups, these show signs of distortion and enhanced star formation, evidence of a gravitational tug of war that will eventually result in galaxy mergers on a cosmic timescale. The merger process is now understood to be a normal part of the evolution of galaxies, including our own Milky Way. For scale, NGC 3190 is about 75,000 light-years across at the estimated distance of Hickson 44.”
"We are mortals all, human and nonhuman, bound in one fellowship of love and travail. No one escapes the fate of death. But we can, with caring, make our good-byes less tormented. If we broaden the circle of our compassion, life can be less cruel."
10:30 AM - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 PM - Lunch! My favorite thing!
1:00 PM - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
2:00 PM - Looked out the window and barked! My favorite thing!
3:00 PM - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
4:00 PM - Chased a bird out of the tree! My favorite thing!
5:00 PM - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
6:00 PM - Watched my people eat! My favorite thing!
6:20 PM - Table scraps! My favorite thing!
7:00 PM - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 PM - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 PM -Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!
Cat Diary:
Day 983 of my captivity. My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.
In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet.
Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a 'good little hunter' I am. B*st*rds!
There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of 'allergies.' I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.
Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow - but at the top of the stairs.
I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog continues to receive special privileges. He is regularly released and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded."
"Socrates: “Why do people think philosophy is bullsh*t? Let me put it this way - imagine you’re in a cave, all chained up so you can’t turn your body at all, and all you get to look at is this one wall. Some fools behind you are making shadow puppets using the light from a fire and making echo noises and that’s all you or anyone else chained up has seen or heard all your life. Sounds terrible, right? Except it’s all you’ve ever known, shadows and echoes, and that’s your whole world - there’s no way you could know that, really, you’re watching a slightly-improved M. Night Shyamalan film.
In fact, you get pretty good at understanding how the patterns in the show work, and everyone else chained up is like, ‘Holy sh*t bro, how did you know that that tree was going to fall on that guy?’ and you’re like, ‘It’s because I f*****g pay attention and I’m smart as sh*t.’ You’re the smartest of the chained, and they all revere you.”
Glaucon:“But Socrates, a tree didn’t really hit a guy. It’s all shadows.”
Socrates:“No sh*t, Glaucon, but you don’t know that. You think the shadows are real things. Everyone does. Now STFU and let me finish.
So eventually, someone comes and unchains you and drags you out of the cave. At first you’d say, ‘Seriously, what the f**k is going on?!’ Well, actually, at first you’d say, ‘HOLY SH*T MY EYES’ and you’d want to go back to the safe, familiar shadows.” But even once your eyes worked you wouldn’t believe them, because everything you ever thought was real is gone. You’d look at a tree, and say ‘That’s not a tree. I know trees. And you, sir, are no tree. THAT DOWN THERE is a tree.’ But you’re wrong. Down there is a shadow of a tree.
Slowly, as your eyes got better, you’d see more and more. Eventually, you’d see the sun, and realize that it’s the source of all light. You can’t see sh*t without the sun. And eventually, you’d figure it out. Something would click in your brain: ‘oh, sh*t, that IS a tree. F**k me. So… nothing in the cave was real? I feel like such an assh**e.’
But it’s not your fault, so don’t be so hard on yourself. Finally you’d want to go down and tell everyone about everything you’ve discovered. Except, and here’s the hilarious part, they think you’ve gone f*****g crazy.
You’d say, ‘Guys, real trees are green!’ and they’d say, ‘What the f**k is green? THAT is a tree over there.’ And you’d squint and look at the wall, but you know you’re f***ed because now you’re used to having sunlight, and now you can’t see sh*t. So they’d laugh at you, and agree that wherever it was that you went, no one should go there because it turns people into idiots.
Philosophy, same thing. The soul ascends and apprehends the forms, the nature of everything, and eventually the very Idea of Good that gives light to everything else. And then the philosopher has to go back to the cave and try to explain it to people who don’t even know what Green is, to say nothing of the Good. But the philosopher didn’t make up the Good, it was always there, and the only way to really make sense of it is to uncover it for yourself. You can’t force knowledge into a dumbass any more than you can force sight into a blind man.
So if you want to learn, be prepared for a difficult journey, and be prepared to make some mistakes. That’s okay, it’s all part of the process. True knowledge must be obtained the hard way, and some people just don’t want to see the light.”
"In 'The Republic', Plato imagines human beings chained for the duration of their lives in an underground cave, knowing nothing but darkness. Their gaze is confined to the cave wall, upon which shadows of the world are thrown. They believe these flickering shadows are reality. If, Plato writes, one of these prisoners is freed and brought into the sunlight, he will suffer great pain. Blinded by the glare, he is unable to seeing anything and longs for the familiar darkness. But eventually his eyes adjust to the light. The illusion of the tiny shadows is obliterated. He confronts the immensity, chaos, and confusion of reality. The world is no longer drawn in simple silhouettes. But he is despised when he returns to the cave. He is unable to see in the dark as he used to. Those who never left the cave ridicule him and swear never to go into the light lest they be blinded as well."
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
"Travel and Food Plans are Canceled This Thanksgiving"
"This is going to be the most expensive Thanksgiving ever. People cannot afford to travel long distances. Gas prices are a huge damper on Thanksgiving travel plans."
"This week it is being reported that the human population of our planet has now reached 8 billion. We should all remember this moment, because soon the population of the globe will start getting much smaller. In “End Times”, I explain that we are moving into one of the most chaotic times in all of human history. There will be wars and rumors of wars, economic collapse, worldwide famines, horrifying pestilences and great natural disasters. Needless to say, in such a future the global population would fall very rapidly. But for purposes of this article, let’s imagine that none of those things will happen for the foreseeable future. For a moment, let’s imagine that conditions will be pretty much like they are today for decades to come. Unfortunately, even in such a wildly unrealistic scenario the human population of our planet would still plummet dramatically in the years ahead. In fact, if current trends continue there will be hardly anyone left by the end of this century no matter what happens.
I realize that I have just made some very outrageous statements, and a lot of you are probably wondering how I could have come to such wild conclusions. So let me take this one step at a time.
According to the UN, the population of the world just hit 8 billion for the first time ever. The following comes from the official website of the United Nations…"The global population is projected to reach 8 billion on 15 November 2022, and India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country in 2023, according to World Population Prospects 2022, released today on World Population Day.
“This year’s World Population Day falls during a milestone year, when we anticipate the birth of the Earth’s eight billionth inhabitant. This is an occasion to celebrate our diversity, recognize our common humanity, and marvel at advancements in health that have extended lifespans and dramatically reduced maternal and child mortality rates,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “At the same time, it is a reminder of our shared responsibility to care for our planet and a moment to reflect on where we still fall short of our commitments to one another,” he added.
But the population of our planet is not growing as rapidly as it once was. In fact, even the UN is acknowledging that total population growth has dropped to just a trickle…"The global population is growing at its slowest rate since 1950, having fallen under 1 per cent in 2020."
In many wealthy areas of the planet, birth rates have already dropped well below replacement level. This is true in the United States and Japan, and in Europe the population is steadily declining even though there has been a massive influx of migrants..."The European Union’s population shrank for a second year running last year, the bloc’s statistics office said on Monday, as the region reels from over two million deaths from the coronavirus. According to Eurostat, the population of the 27 countries that make up the bloc fell by close to 172,000 from the previous year and over 656,000 from January 2020."
One of the big reasons why birth rates are falling in wealthy countries is because men in those nations are a lot less fertile than they used to be. In fact, researchers have just released a study that shows that the decline in sperm counts “has only accelerated since the turn of the century”…"Plummeting sperm counts ‘threaten mankind’s survival’, researchers dramatically warned today. Counts have more than halved since the 1970. And the decline has only accelerated since the turn of the century, according to a global analysis. Once your sperm count gets low enough, it becomes almost impossible to have children.
So this is a really big deal. "According to the study, average sperm counts have been declining by 2.64 percent per year since the year 2000…Results showed the mean sperm count fell by 51.6 per cent between 1973 and 2018 across men from all continents. And concentrations have been falling by 2.64 per cent per year since 2000, quicker than the previous drop of 1.16 per cent annually from 1972.
Average sperm counts have already fallen into “the danger zone”, and if this trend continues average sperm counts will fall by another 50 percent in less than 20 years. At that point, it is likely that the number of men that are infertile will be far greater than the number of men that are still able to have children. And that is a recipe for catastrophic population decline."
If you are a man that wishes to remain fertile, one thing that you can do to help yourself is to stop carrying around your phone in your pockets. Constantly exposing your genitals to microwave radiation is a really bad idea if you want to have kids.
Of course the human race is killing itself in countless other ways as well. For example, even though we know that glyphosate causes cancer, we keep feeding foods that have been sprayed with it to ourselves and our children on a daily basis.
As a result, approximately 80 percent of the entire U.S. population now has glyphosate in their urine…"Part of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention program, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found glyphosate in 1,885 of 2,310 urine samples representative of the population at large. Nearly a third of the samples came from kids, ranging in age from six to 18.
“Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the country, yet until now we had very little data on exposure,” Alexis Temkin, a toxicologist at the Environmental Working Group, said Monday in a statement. “Children in the U.S. are regularly exposed to this cancer-causing weedkiller through the food they eat virtually every day.”
Why would we do this to our kids? Are we insane?
Another way that we are literally killing ourselves is by our widespread use of plastics that contain cancer-causing chemicals. When we dispose of a plastic item, it slowly starts breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces. Over time, the pieces become so small that they can barely be seen. There are trillions upon trillions of these “microplastics” in the air, water and soil all over the planet. In fact, researchers have found microplastics wherever they have looked. They have been discovered in the remotest parts of the Earth, they are in the rain that falls from the sky, and they now make up approximately 40 percent of the dust in our homes.
Microplastics often contain cancer-causing chemicals, and studies have shown that exposure to microplastics can cause “cell death”…"Microplastic particles can cause cell death, cellular wall damage and allergic reactions in humans – at levels ingested by people via their food, a study has warned. Researchers led from the University of Hull reviewed 17 previous studies on the toxicological impacts of microplastics on human cells in a laboratory setting. The team then compared the levels of microplastics required to cause cellular damage with those taken in via drinking water, seafood and table salt."
If you get enough plastic in your system, you will die. And the amount of plastic that we create each year has been rising at an exponential rate. So this is a health crisis that is only going to get worse. But even if we were able to eliminate all plastic use immediately, this crisis would continue to escalate for a long time to come, because all of the plastic that we have already discarded will continue to slowly break down for decades.
Sadly, what I have covered in this article is just the tip of the iceberg. The air that we breathe, the beverages that we drink and the food that we eat are all toxic. If all that wasn’t enough, there are numerous other ways that we are literally committing societal suicide on a scale of epic proportions. So the population of the world will not stay at 8 billion for long. Even if global conditions remain relatively stable, a future of widespread infertility and mass death is ahead. The clock is ticking for humanity, and the mess that we have created is way too big for us to fix on our own"
Baltimore, Maryland - "The Middle Class Delenda Est (the middle class must be destroyed). In the next couple of days, we will look at Baltimore rowhouses…the plight of small farmers during the Roman Empire…and the meaning of “common sense,” among other things. All of these themes come together in one extraordinary and magnificent spectacle – think “Gone with the Wind” meets “Stalingrad” – that is, the destruction of the middle class and the societies that depend on them. CNBC:
"Household debt soars at fastest pace in 15 years as credit card use surges, Fed report says." "Total debt jumped by $351 billion for the July-to-September period, the largest nominal quarterly increase since 2007, bringing the collective household IOU in the U.S. to a fresh record $16.5 trillion, up 2.2% from the previous quarter and 8.3% from a year ago."
And while debt is increasing, job prospects are receding. Charlie Bilello updates us on the job cuts in the tech industry:
• Twitter cutting 50% of its workforce (estimated 3,700 jobs).
• Facebook ($META): cutting 13% of its staff (11,000 jobs), its largest round of layoffs ever.
• Snap ($SNAP): cutting 20% of its workforce (1,200 jobs).
• Shopify ($SHOP): cutting 10% of its workforce (1,000 jobs).
• Netflix ($NFLX): cut 450 jobs in two rounds of layoffs.
• Microsoft ($MSFT): cutting <1% of workforce (1,000 jobs).
• Salesforce ($CRM): cutting 1,000 jobs.
• Robinhood ($HOOD): cutting 31% of its workforce.
• Tesla ($TSLA): cutting 10% of its salaried workforce.
• Lyft ($LYFT): cutting 13% of its workforce (700 jobs).
• Redfin ($RDFN): cutting 13% of its workforce.
• Coinbase ($COIN): cutting 18% of its workforce (1,100 jobs).
• Stripe cutting 14% of its workforce (1,000 jobs).
In addition to these cuts, Amazon ($AMZN) has announced a hiring freeze, Apple ($AAPL) has paused almost all hiring, and Google ($GOOGL) is reducing new hiring by 50%.
War and Taxes: Jobs, debt, housing, income, inflation – when these go the wrong way, the middle class is doomed. Add war and taxes…and the destruction is complete. But America won’t be the first country to destroy its middle classes. It is what great empires, as well as banana republics, do. From ancient Rome to modern Venezuela – eliminating the middle class is not just a by-product of a corrupt elite, it’s the name of the game.
The success of the Roman Empire was mostly thanks to its middle-class farmers and craftsmen. They were the backbone of the Republic, ready to take up their swords and shields as duty called. They were a largely homogenous group, sharing the same culture and values. But they were a threat to the ruling class, too. Dispersed and independent, they were not so easily distracted by circuses in Rome or so cheaply bought off with the free bread distributed to urban mobs. And they might turn on the elite as well as support them.
As the Republic became an Empire, it expanded its borders in a series of almost permanent wars around the periphery. Generals gained wealth and glory, returning in triumph with their booty…including slaves. Middle class farmers had small plots of land that they worked themselves, with their families, and sometimes a few slaves. But when the imperial conquests really got rolling, the number of slaves grew proportionally. In the capture of Epiros alone, in the Third Macedonia War, 150,000 people were sold into slavery.
The slaves changed the domestic economy and the soldiers and free farmers themselves found themselves squeezed. In the early days, a citizen-soldier did his duty and soon returned home to take up his plow again. But as the Empire became more far-flung, it stationed its young men in Africa, Spain, and the Middle East, on bases hundreds of miles from Rome, often with a tour of duty that lasted as long as 20 years.
When they got home, the soldiers found their farms long neglected. Their families often had to borrow in order to survive until the fighting men returned. Then, to pay the debt, the farm was sold to elite landowners. These rich men consolidated the small farms into ‘latifundio’ that were worked by teams of slaves, rather than free men.
Large plantation-style farming then lowered farm prices; independent farmers had a hard time competing. This, combined with the constant need for more soldiers, inflation, and higher taxes, led many farmers to abandon their land…and finally, to sell themselves and their families into slavery.
Common Nonsense: “What goes around, comes around,” is an expression arising from observation and embedded in the popular mind as “common sense.” “Be nice to the people you meet on the way up,” is another common dictum, “because you will meet them again on the way down.” As it turned out, the rich and powerful met invading barbarians.
By then, the ‘Roman’ army had disintegrated. But it had ceased being ‘Roman’ anyway. When the middle class was destroyed so was the stock of loyal, patriotic soldiers willing to fight and die for the homeland. The empire had been forced to turn to mercenaries and pay-to-fight armies that were reliable…but only to a point. And as the empire’s finances dissolved, the pay-to-fight soldiers often didn’t get paid and didn’t fight. In the heat of battle, many turned against Rome. Finally, the Empire was unprotected; there were no citizen soldiers to rally…and no middle class to keep order.
Oadacer deposed the last emperor in 476. By then, the barbarians – which included Goths, Huns, Alans, and other Germanic tribes, escaped slaves, starving and displaced peasants, deserters and brigands of all sorts – roamed freely over the country, raping, pillaging, stealing, slaughtering, enslaving and destroying every thing and everyone they came in contact with.
More to come…"
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Joel’s Note: "On the subject of soaring debt, Dan Denning shared this vertiginous chart among the BPR braintrust yesterday. It’s what the kids used to call “fugly”…
Click image or larger size.
This year’s third quarter increase of $351 billion was the largest nominal quarterly jump since 2007 and included a $282 billion increase in mortgage balances, according to the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data. Continued the report, from Liberty Street Economics:
"Mortgages, historically the largest form of household debt, now comprise 71 percent of outstanding household debt balances, up from 69 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019. An increase in credit card balances was also a boost to the total debt balances, with credit card balances up $38 billion from the previous quarter. On a year-over-year basis, this marked a 15 percent increase, the largest in more than twenty years."
Of course, borrowing money at low (or even negative real) rates is one thing… but, as reported in this space over the weekend, this outstanding debt comes at a time when interest repayments are cresting multi-decade highs, further putting a strain on middle class families.
The New York Fed’s data suggests Americans are on track to hold close to $1 trillion (with a “T”) in collective credit card debt before year’s end. And that’s at eye-wateringly high rates, too. A survey by Bankrate.com puts the average credit card interest rate at just over 19%, the highest it’s been in over thirty years. Here’s a look at the year-over-year increase in credit card balances outstanding.
What does this spell for the mighty American consumer…and for earnings of the aforementioned tech companies, already struggling with massive layoffs? What does it portend for the job market in general? And what does it mean for foreclosures on households struggling to juggle mounting debt as interest rates continue to rise?"
