It suffices to see who is against this humanitarian move. Qatar, after shedding crocodile tears for months about starvation in Gaza, goes with all its power against this project of bringing in huge amounts of food for the population, and describes the project as a coffin.
It means a potential reversal of American policy and a victory to the bloc of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates (with fledgling Egypt) over the bloc of Qatar, Iran, Hizbullah, the Houthis, Russia, and China.
Whaddayathink? You for Biden or Qatar, Iran, Hizbullah, the Houthis, Russia, and China?
I normally view MEMRI as reliable, but “the bloc of Israel [and] the Palestinian Authority’? Since when were they on the same side? He’s got a point about the corruption of the Rafah crossing from Egypt, but there are no answers on how the aid coming in over the US floating port could be prevented from falling under Hamas control unless Hamas is previously totally defeated.
My daylilies are a couple of weeks ahead of yours, Neo, to the point where I’d better get out there with some deer repellent soon.
From our relatives still in CT, second mild winter in a row and now it looks like spring is taking hold there. If lilies are up, I assume the crocuses have bee seen for awhile?
Guess all the Day Lillies from last yr died. Just planted new ones, have to get more. Tulips though are several inches high, as are some other things I planted last fall. It is hitting the 60’s here in the afternoons. But some snow showers later this week and maybe next too.
That MEMRI column reads like parody…the only problem being that Yigal Carmon doesn’t generally “do” parody…but then “these are the times that try men’s souls”(?)….
“Confusion, Evasion, and Outright Lies.” – brief by Techno Fog
Boeing whistleblower found with “apparent suicide” gunshot wound to head just before he was to give more information. Most comments are that he was “Epsteined”. I wouldn’t be surprised. For the time being it might be wise to fly on Airbuses, Embraers, or Bombardier planes.
Your link to the article on Canadians leaving Canada is very interesting. El Salvador is more of a risk than I would choose to take, but for people betting on it now their bet could potentially pay off very well. I wish them luck!
Good catch 🙂 – MSM (AKA Fake News) twists facts to give Academy Awards a little glitter, ‘But facts are facts‘:
But facts are facts, and a mere ten years ago, in 2014, the Oscar telecast drew 43.7 million viewers. Hell, five years ago, in 2019, 30 million tuned in.
But by all means, celebrate that 19.5 million.
Funny how the times still doesnt think the suicide is relevant
I actually more of it than usual because oppenheimer
“My daylilies are a couple of weeks ahead of yours, Neo, to the point where I’d better get out there with some deer repellent soon.”
Ha. A repeat of an event I mentioned before.
When I bought the old family place, the old one not the 60’s/70’s suburban one, it came with 4 or so beds of day lillies in a line along the ditching that marked the property line with the neighbors. The lillies had been in a line, alternating with spaced out weeping willows, right to the road.
The willows were removed before I acquired the place and I was undecided whether to mow the lillies down flat, or mow around them; as they were right up against the ditch and the pipe rail fence [ made in rough imitation of a split rail or corral fence] .
I then recalled a book someone had that said the roots were edible. Figuring it was always possible that Jimmy Carter might be relected and finish the job he started, I not only left them, but filled in the spaces between making one continuous 100 ft long bed. There! Now I don’t need all that freeze dried food. We can dine on tubers from the ditch.
I don’t care anything for flowers particularly, but I did get a good chuckle of appreciation after seeing them all bloom at once.
Then, sometime later in terms of years, it dawned on me about one August that it had in fact been some years prior since I had noticed them in bloom. So next time, I slowed the lawn tractor down and looked closely. The plants were all cropped neatly at about 7 inches high.
It puzzled me until one morning I looked out of an upper story window I never really use, and saw 6, 7, or 8 deer asses lined up along the day lilly bed like hogs at a trough. Full size does, yearlings and several in between.
It had become a feeding station for them.
Had no idea before that that deer were doing it.
This fall, at least 5 large different bucks frequented the yard. A 10 or a 12 depending on how you count, two magnificent 8’s with extreme tines, a big six and a couple of impressive fork horns or club spikes as well. The remarkable thing was that the big 4 were simultaneously browsing within a few yards of each other on occasion. Very little play fighting or running the smaller ones off. They were after the fallen persimmons.
Other than the 12, they must have been 24 to 30 or so month aged sibs: young, but with preturnaturally developed antlers. None had the horizontally spreading main beams of an older buck.
But, I’d take any of the bigger 3 over anything I have ever shot 250 miles north.
The spring yellow flowers/ weeds are showing up in East Texas. Yellow and some white is the dominant color of spring weeds around here until the red paintbrushes and clover and the Bluebonnets show up. But yellow is the biggest color, overall.
Interesting, Western Christianity’s celebration of Palm Sunday and the Jewish Purim are on the same day this year. ( Well, technically, Purim starts a few hours earlier at sundown.)
I know a fair amount of the readers here are retired, and may not see this firsthand, but the job market is rather abysmal.
Ignore numbers we get from the government. (Numbers that are continuously adjusted down after the fact.) We have all seen inflation increase rather drastically the past 4 years. Most all of us pay 30% more for food, fuel, rent, home owners and auto insurance… If you want to purchase a home the price you pay will be about 30% higher than the same home would have cost 4 – 6 years ago. And, because of higher mortgage interest rates, property taxes and homeowner’s insurance your monthly payment will be drastically more than it would have been then.
In a tight job market with high inflation employers have to offer higher wages to attract talent. We are not seeing that. The minimum wage has increased by fiat in most places, but that’s not due to inflationary triggers.
I think retirees are propping up a lot of industries; cruises, hotels, furniture, construction, automotive, restaurants… but I don’t see a big uptick in spending by folks 40 and under. Also, I’ve heard some young people state, “F it. With these prices and interest rates I’ll never own a home, so why bother saving. I’m going to vacation and do door dash and spend my money as I make it.” Those attitudes may also be propping up some industries.
But it’s not a booming job market.
I also notice a huge influx of overseas influence, especially from India. As an example; immigrant groups in U.S. cities often cornered a market, somewhat out of necessity. Like the Chinese often did with laundry or Italians with concrete. Pool your money, get some equipment, undercut existing businesses with cheap labor and throw profits back into the business to expand and hire more immigrants.
In my industry, IT, I see so many Indian CIOs who came to America to attend University 10, 20 years ago, and now use their contacts back home for cheap IT labor that benefits these U.S. companies. IT is dominated by Indian – Americans. Unlike laundry or pouring concrete, the labor doesn’t have to be local, so the Indian department leaders can use their compatriots who still live in India, where there is a much lower cost of living and much lower wages. I would also guess there are a fair amount of kickbacks going on with these types of arrangements (just as there were with Italians and concrete and myriad other industries dominated by waves of immigrants). How is the CEO of Acme Widgets in Detroit to know the IT outsourcing firm his CIO hired happens to be the CIO’s brother-in-law in Bangalore?
If any of you spend anytime on LinkedIn (FaceBook for employment) you’ll notice a lot of people complaining about a huge number of job posting that appear to be fake, or being ghosted by employers when applying for jobs. I think a lot of this has to do with hiring overseas labor at cheaper rates. Companies are audited and have to prove they tried to find a U.S. citizen to fill a job before they can use non-U.S. citizens. So, post the job on LinkedIn, state you didn’t get any qualified applicants and then save money by going offshore. You actually did get applicants, but with electronic applications it’s easy to pick and choose which ones you show if audited by the government.
Yes, there are a lot of service level jobs open. There is a lot of opportunity at the $20/hour and lower range. And all those “Help Wanted” signs can give one the impression it’s a booming job market and/or millenials are lazy and don’t want to work. But if you talk with folks in the $20 and up range you’ll get a different perspective. There is a core “elite” doing very well. Maybe 5% of the workforce, but I’ve never seen a job market in this much flux that also has such little excitement.
Really, really odd.
“Maybe 5% of the workforce, but I’ve never seen a job market in this much flux that also has such little excitement.
Really, really odd.” – Rufus T.
Thanks for the report. I agree that there is something quite strange going on that I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Where are people getting the money that drives the consumer boom that appears to be going on?
Will the Fed’s next interest rate move be up, or as widely expected, down?
How are realtors able to make a living in a market that has 50% fewer sales than three years ago?
Car sales are still relatively strong in spite of higher MRSPs and interest rates on loans. Where is the money coming from?
Why is the supply chain still not functioning the way it was before Covid? Our grocery store has lots of empty space on its shelves.
Still lots of help wanted signs in local businesses. Where are the workers?
These are the things I notice and am wondering when things will return to normal.
RINO Ken Buck decides to retire early and immediately. As predicted, like the Paul Ryano Congress, RINOs are leaving so they can hand control of the House over to their Communist friends. Bitch McConnell smiles.
J.J.,
There are a lot of retirees doing really well. A lot of teachers, fire fighters, police, public employees from big cities retired with very healthy pensions that are, thus far, still paying out. A lot even retire in their late 40s, many in their 50s. I know two retired music teachers that just took very fancy, overseas cruises. My friends in that upper 5% have been doing very well. The stock market has been doing much better than most anticipated over the past decade, giving a lot of them a lot more disposable income than they anticipated having.
And, from people I know in their 20s and 30s who are not in the elite, 5%, they tell me they see a lot of their peers living a YOLO type existence, with car payments nearly beyond their means or frequent vacations because they don’t expect to own a home. My kids are fairly old fashioned and frugal and yet I’m still surprised how they often choose convenience (door dash, pre-planned meal delivery, etc…) over sacrificing 30 minutes of their own time.
And I can’t figure out commercial real estate at all. I see so many barely occupied and unoccupied commercial facilities in my city. When I visit Chicago’s Loop on a workday I see a fraction of the commuters that used to be there. James Lileks often posts photos of downtown Minneapolis as a vast wasteland. He often writes humorously of his employer’s (the Star Tribune) gimmicky attempts to get staff back in the office. Yet I don’t see a huge collapse in commercial real estate. How can this be? What is propping it up? I read articles about the nature and timing of commercial leases, and that there is a reckoning coming, but shouldn’t prices have already plummeted in anticipation of that?
And whole industries appear to be dying, print media, online media, residential realty (as you mention), marketing, advertising… I read about massive layoffs but I don’t see soup lines, or foreclosure signs or prices dropping.
I can’t figure it out.
I think retirees are propping up a lot of industries; cruises, hotels, furniture, construction, automotive, restaurants… but I don’t see a big uptick in spending by folks 40 and under. Also, I’ve heard some young people state, “F it. With these prices and interest rates I’ll never own a home, so why bother saving. I’m going to vacation and do door dash and spend my money as I make it”
I’ll leave it to Deco to pull the numbers for now, but I think that it is a reasonable surmise that well heeled retirees are adding to consumer spending in a way that they did not in 1978. Anyway, I’d be surprised if that were not the case.
As far as young people go, it would not surprise me if post teenage years young adult drop outs have not contributed to lower unemployment in the way we supposedly saw with near retirees some years ago as they simply gave up looking for jobs. You quit looking, you’re not counted.
I put a pause on looking at municipal debt, state and local pension obligations, about the time Trump got elected. Figured some of his initiatives related to energy and manufacturing and trade MIGHT lead to beneficial outcomes.
When Biden got elected, I said eff it and these people. Let the comet come, I’ll pick up the pieces later.
Or maybe technology will buy us out of our challenges. Who knows. Maybe Robbie the Robot will spin your meals out of thin air and the laws of action-reaction will no longer apply.
Yeah, free stuff … endlessly.
Ah, almost forgot again.
Cannot recall who were the musicians and who were the jazz guitar students [ Rufus, maybe?] , but this journeyman-like rendition popped up in my suggestions about a week or two ago.
Plaing it straight and from Japan.
Apparently it’s a thing over there. The archtops, or hollowbodies, the American songbook tunes.
In the mid-80s I did a rather deep dive on our nation’s debt and extrapolations on unfounded liabilities out into the future. I figured if our Congress acted soon, and tightened our nation’s fiscal belt we might have enough time to escape catastrophe.
The opposite happened and I kept waiting for the asteroid to hit. Still Congress did nothing. They actually hit the accelerator. And turbo charged the engine. And added a nitrous tank. Our ratio of debt as a percent of GDP is now in bizarro world.
Oh, and American birthrates have been going down since 1950, and continue to drop, which can’t be good for GDP growth.
Maybe the Canadian couple that moved to El Salvador in Barry’s link have the right idea.
DNW,
I’m definitely into jazz, but don’t play strings. I pretend to play brass and keyboards and occasionally punish audiences with my singing. (Harmonica is my best instrument, but people don’t typically want to hear 3, 45 minute sets of harmonica.)
You are correct that Japan has some marvelous jazz musicians.
Thanks for the link! That was great!
My band started playing “Green Dolphin Street” about a year ago. At first I didn’t get it. It seemed odd to me, and I was not a fan. It’s a tricky composition, with some unique chords and rhythms. But once we all got it together it was magical. Now it’s one of my favorites.
I don’t know how I missed it for so many years, but I started learning about it after I discovered how much I like the song. Musicians love covering it and there are many renditions and a lot of interesting versions. Even Vince Guaraldi covered it.
What really struck me is that it is from a movie and when I read about the movie it was nothing like what I imagined the movie would be, based on the melody. I assumed it was a 1950s or early ’60s movie about a couple struggling to make it in L.A. or San Francisco. Turns out it’s about whaling in New Zealand in the 1800s! The beautiful song you linked does not make me think about Victorian era whalers in the southern hemisphere!
I really only knew him from the later hits like this
There’s a bloodbath happening in tech.
_____________________________
Tech layoffs in 2024: A timeline
Technology companies have continued to lay off staff in 2024, despite improving fundamentals. Here’s an updated timeline of notable layoffs, and reasons why Big Tech is in turmoil.
Tucker Carlson has become somewhat controversial as of late, but he is still a voice trying to amplify and broadcast a message of how our government is often acting in its own interests, not ours.
He had Mike Benz, founder of Foundation for Freedom Online on an hour long chat and in Tucker Carlson fashion he let’s Benz do most of the talking as he lays out the long march of government censorship from it’s early post WWII foundation to the current iteration of global censorship of Orwellian proportions.
The story he tells is so fantastic, it seems impossible, here is a NBC story trying to discredit Benz with: “But before his stints in government and as a pundit, Benz appears to have been a pseudonymous alt-right content creator who courted and interacted with white nationalists and posted videos espousing racist conspiracy theories…”, so he must be on to something.
My generally preferred version – giving credit of course to the enjoyable studio musician type straight covers – is the John Coltrane in Germany 1960 version. Which, you are familiar with and I have mentioned too many times before.
Your remark marveling at the fact of an oddball historical melodrama producing a great jazz standard, has been repeated by many of us. Then of course there is Stella by Starlight too, from a picture about a haunted house.
But the one that takes the cake so to speak, has to be I’ll Remember April. I could not believe what I was seeing on the YouTube snippet. An Abbot and Costello movie? And what is that a string of cowboys down in the valley riding slowly in the dark?
Well, not cowboys exactly. But still ….
Re: Odd movie to jazz standard
Rufus, DNW:
I think of “My Foolish Heart” (1949), a pretty mediocre adaptation of a J.D. Salinger story, which soured Salinger forever on allowing another Hollywood film based on his work.
However, the title song became a jazz standard. My favorite cover is, of course, Bill Evans’:
Thanks, DNW and Huxley, I didn’t know the origins of those songs. Abbott and Costello? Hilarious!
Re: Odd movie to jazz standard
Rufus, DNW:
I think of “My Foolish Heart” (1949), a pretty mediocre adaptation of a J.D. Salinger story, which soured Salinger forever on allowing another Hollywood film based on his work.
However, the title song became a jazz standard. My favorite cover is, of course, Bill Evans’:
LOL Truth be told I couldn’t make the song out and kept trying to catch a couple bars of melody. Eventually I caught two and got “These Foolish Things” out of my head, and then with the help of Connie Francis on YouTube was finally able to say, Oh! That ….song.
We were in a bistro on Kercheval a couple years back and I was feeding the keyboardist pianist American Songbook suggestions and a twenty and during a break he came by and chatted. He brought up his relationship with Bill Evans and I nodded knowingly, picturing Errol Garner or someone I saw on tv as a kid, in my head.
But it worked out. He was so happy not to play Elton John, Paul Anka, and Neil Sedaka shit that I probably didn’t have to tip him. Ha
Jon, it’s a (Jewish) leap year, i.e., 13 months instead of 12. This occurs, IIRC, seven times each 19-year cycle. A second Adar is added just before official spring, which additional month pushes Passover, generally aligned with Easter—the Last Supper being a Passover Seder—back by several weeks (and Purim comes exactly a month before Passover).
– – – – – –
Rufus, think of it as a transfer of populations…(?)
“Really, really odd”…continued…
I’m not an expert in such things, BUT I figger that since “Biden” lies about EVERYTHING, and since “he” is most certainly not ashamed about lying BIG, then there are bound to be certain, um—let’s call them—discrepancies between “Biden”-World/”Biden”-Speak and reality.
This being the case, we SHOULD EXPECT that things are “really, really odd”.
To expect otherwise would, in fact, be “really, really odd”…. (As they say, “Who ya’ gonna believe? The politicians, and their pathetic Media poodles, or yer own lyin’ eyes??”)
Here’s an article (or two) that might offer some “assistance” (to those who are more adept at understanding economic matters than I am)…
Really, really, REALLY not so odd (continued)…
“Legacy of Deception: Democrat-led, taxpayer-funded machine exposed anew for misleading Americans;
“False realities, untrue narratives and outright lies are putting the country on a whipsaw rollercoaster where truths are surfacing long after lies have affected elections or official actions, experts say. Even worse, it’s paid for from public funds.”— https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/hlddemocrat-fed-taxpayer-funded-machine-exposed-anew-deceiving
Having said/read/been fed all this…THERE IS NO FREAKIN’ WAY that anyone could POSSIBLY CLAIM that the Democrats stole the 2020 election.
(OTOH, one COULD INDEED SAY that they “Fortified” them(!)… But how the pluperfect could one possibly KNOW what “Fortified” is supposed to mean??
And for an answer to this vital—and fascinating—question, we are now joined by our Roving Language Correspondent, the Honourable Humpty Dumpty…still the world’s leading authority on the subject…even if he’s just a shell of his old self (heh, heh, ahem…)…
Officials at West Point reportedly remove the phrase, “Duty, Honor, Country” from their mission statement.*
Something fascinating on the DDR (or GDR, AKA East Germany), which strives to be as objective as possible…and contains some information that might not ordinarily be known…some light among the darkness, as it were…
“The Stories of a Forgotten Nation” https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-stories-of-a-forgotten-nation/
H/T Powerline blog.
Port Of Hope In Gaza: The Beginning Of The End Of The War
Whaddayathink? You for Biden or Qatar, Iran, Hizbullah, the Houthis, Russia, and China?
I normally view MEMRI as reliable, but “the bloc of Israel [and] the Palestinian Authority’? Since when were they on the same side? He’s got a point about the corruption of the Rafah crossing from Egypt, but there are no answers on how the aid coming in over the US floating port could be prevented from falling under Hamas control unless Hamas is previously totally defeated.
My daylilies are a couple of weeks ahead of yours, Neo, to the point where I’d better get out there with some deer repellent soon.
From our relatives still in CT, second mild winter in a row and now it looks like spring is taking hold there. If lilies are up, I assume the crocuses have bee seen for awhile?
Guess all the Day Lillies from last yr died. Just planted new ones, have to get more. Tulips though are several inches high, as are some other things I planted last fall. It is hitting the 60’s here in the afternoons. But some snow showers later this week and maybe next too.
That MEMRI column reads like parody…the only problem being that Yigal Carmon doesn’t generally “do” parody…but then “these are the times that try men’s souls”(?)….
…Speaking of which, Canadians—no joke here—are going to have to make a decision:
“Canadians are fleeing the country. Here’s why – and how – they did it”—
https://tnc.news/2024/03/10/canadians-fleeing-the-country/
H/T Instapundit.
Hur testimony before House Judiciary Committee, livestream (pull slider back to 10 mins in for start of hearing) : https://www.youtube.com/live/8bwokJmdO5o?si=2hiJ7FrpS6iF8KrZ
The Biden Transcripts
“Confusion, Evasion, and Outright Lies.” – brief by Techno Fog
Boeing whistleblower found with “apparent suicide” gunshot wound to head just before he was to give more information. Most comments are that he was “Epsteined”. I wouldn’t be surprised. For the time being it might be wise to fly on Airbuses, Embraers, or Bombardier planes.
Boeing stock down 4% since the news broke.
https://twitter.com/_johnnymaga/status/1767580675584962810
https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1767571860051403084
https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1767584552233701503
Barry,
Your link to the article on Canadians leaving Canada is very interesting. El Salvador is more of a risk than I would choose to take, but for people betting on it now their bet could potentially pay off very well. I wish them luck!
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2024/03/12/nolte-dying-oscar-telecast-bombs-with-4th-lowest-ratings-in-history/
Miguel cervantes:
Good catch 🙂 – MSM (AKA Fake News) twists facts to give Academy Awards a little glitter, ‘But facts are facts‘:
Funny how the times still doesnt think the suicide is relevant
I actually more of it than usual because oppenheimer
Ha. A repeat of an event I mentioned before.
When I bought the old family place, the old one not the 60’s/70’s suburban one, it came with 4 or so beds of day lillies in a line along the ditching that marked the property line with the neighbors. The lillies had been in a line, alternating with spaced out weeping willows, right to the road.
The willows were removed before I acquired the place and I was undecided whether to mow the lillies down flat, or mow around them; as they were right up against the ditch and the pipe rail fence [ made in rough imitation of a split rail or corral fence] .
I then recalled a book someone had that said the roots were edible. Figuring it was always possible that Jimmy Carter might be relected and finish the job he started, I not only left them, but filled in the spaces between making one continuous 100 ft long bed. There! Now I don’t need all that freeze dried food. We can dine on tubers from the ditch.
I don’t care anything for flowers particularly, but I did get a good chuckle of appreciation after seeing them all bloom at once.
Then, sometime later in terms of years, it dawned on me about one August that it had in fact been some years prior since I had noticed them in bloom. So next time, I slowed the lawn tractor down and looked closely. The plants were all cropped neatly at about 7 inches high.
It puzzled me until one morning I looked out of an upper story window I never really use, and saw 6, 7, or 8 deer asses lined up along the day lilly bed like hogs at a trough. Full size does, yearlings and several in between.
It had become a feeding station for them.
Had no idea before that that deer were doing it.
This fall, at least 5 large different bucks frequented the yard. A 10 or a 12 depending on how you count, two magnificent 8’s with extreme tines, a big six and a couple of impressive fork horns or club spikes as well. The remarkable thing was that the big 4 were simultaneously browsing within a few yards of each other on occasion. Very little play fighting or running the smaller ones off. They were after the fallen persimmons.
Other than the 12, they must have been 24 to 30 or so month aged sibs: young, but with preturnaturally developed antlers. None had the horizontally spreading main beams of an older buck.
But, I’d take any of the bigger 3 over anything I have ever shot 250 miles north.
The spring yellow flowers/ weeds are showing up in East Texas. Yellow and some white is the dominant color of spring weeds around here until the red paintbrushes and clover and the Bluebonnets show up. But yellow is the biggest color, overall.
Interesting, Western Christianity’s celebration of Palm Sunday and the Jewish Purim are on the same day this year. ( Well, technically, Purim starts a few hours earlier at sundown.)
I know a fair amount of the readers here are retired, and may not see this firsthand, but the job market is rather abysmal.
Ignore numbers we get from the government. (Numbers that are continuously adjusted down after the fact.) We have all seen inflation increase rather drastically the past 4 years. Most all of us pay 30% more for food, fuel, rent, home owners and auto insurance… If you want to purchase a home the price you pay will be about 30% higher than the same home would have cost 4 – 6 years ago. And, because of higher mortgage interest rates, property taxes and homeowner’s insurance your monthly payment will be drastically more than it would have been then.
In a tight job market with high inflation employers have to offer higher wages to attract talent. We are not seeing that. The minimum wage has increased by fiat in most places, but that’s not due to inflationary triggers.
I think retirees are propping up a lot of industries; cruises, hotels, furniture, construction, automotive, restaurants… but I don’t see a big uptick in spending by folks 40 and under. Also, I’ve heard some young people state, “F it. With these prices and interest rates I’ll never own a home, so why bother saving. I’m going to vacation and do door dash and spend my money as I make it.” Those attitudes may also be propping up some industries.
But it’s not a booming job market.
I also notice a huge influx of overseas influence, especially from India. As an example; immigrant groups in U.S. cities often cornered a market, somewhat out of necessity. Like the Chinese often did with laundry or Italians with concrete. Pool your money, get some equipment, undercut existing businesses with cheap labor and throw profits back into the business to expand and hire more immigrants.
In my industry, IT, I see so many Indian CIOs who came to America to attend University 10, 20 years ago, and now use their contacts back home for cheap IT labor that benefits these U.S. companies. IT is dominated by Indian – Americans. Unlike laundry or pouring concrete, the labor doesn’t have to be local, so the Indian department leaders can use their compatriots who still live in India, where there is a much lower cost of living and much lower wages. I would also guess there are a fair amount of kickbacks going on with these types of arrangements (just as there were with Italians and concrete and myriad other industries dominated by waves of immigrants). How is the CEO of Acme Widgets in Detroit to know the IT outsourcing firm his CIO hired happens to be the CIO’s brother-in-law in Bangalore?
If any of you spend anytime on LinkedIn (FaceBook for employment) you’ll notice a lot of people complaining about a huge number of job posting that appear to be fake, or being ghosted by employers when applying for jobs. I think a lot of this has to do with hiring overseas labor at cheaper rates. Companies are audited and have to prove they tried to find a U.S. citizen to fill a job before they can use non-U.S. citizens. So, post the job on LinkedIn, state you didn’t get any qualified applicants and then save money by going offshore. You actually did get applicants, but with electronic applications it’s easy to pick and choose which ones you show if audited by the government.
Yes, there are a lot of service level jobs open. There is a lot of opportunity at the $20/hour and lower range. And all those “Help Wanted” signs can give one the impression it’s a booming job market and/or millenials are lazy and don’t want to work. But if you talk with folks in the $20 and up range you’ll get a different perspective. There is a core “elite” doing very well. Maybe 5% of the workforce, but I’ve never seen a job market in this much flux that also has such little excitement.
Really, really odd.
“Maybe 5% of the workforce, but I’ve never seen a job market in this much flux that also has such little excitement.
Really, really odd.” – Rufus T.
Thanks for the report. I agree that there is something quite strange going on that I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Where are people getting the money that drives the consumer boom that appears to be going on?
Will the Fed’s next interest rate move be up, or as widely expected, down?
How are realtors able to make a living in a market that has 50% fewer sales than three years ago?
Car sales are still relatively strong in spite of higher MRSPs and interest rates on loans. Where is the money coming from?
Why is the supply chain still not functioning the way it was before Covid? Our grocery store has lots of empty space on its shelves.
Still lots of help wanted signs in local businesses. Where are the workers?
These are the things I notice and am wondering when things will return to normal.
RINO Ken Buck decides to retire early and immediately. As predicted, like the Paul Ryano Congress, RINOs are leaving so they can hand control of the House over to their Communist friends. Bitch McConnell smiles.
J.J.,
There are a lot of retirees doing really well. A lot of teachers, fire fighters, police, public employees from big cities retired with very healthy pensions that are, thus far, still paying out. A lot even retire in their late 40s, many in their 50s. I know two retired music teachers that just took very fancy, overseas cruises. My friends in that upper 5% have been doing very well. The stock market has been doing much better than most anticipated over the past decade, giving a lot of them a lot more disposable income than they anticipated having.
And, from people I know in their 20s and 30s who are not in the elite, 5%, they tell me they see a lot of their peers living a YOLO type existence, with car payments nearly beyond their means or frequent vacations because they don’t expect to own a home. My kids are fairly old fashioned and frugal and yet I’m still surprised how they often choose convenience (door dash, pre-planned meal delivery, etc…) over sacrificing 30 minutes of their own time.
And I can’t figure out commercial real estate at all. I see so many barely occupied and unoccupied commercial facilities in my city. When I visit Chicago’s Loop on a workday I see a fraction of the commuters that used to be there. James Lileks often posts photos of downtown Minneapolis as a vast wasteland. He often writes humorously of his employer’s (the Star Tribune) gimmicky attempts to get staff back in the office. Yet I don’t see a huge collapse in commercial real estate. How can this be? What is propping it up? I read articles about the nature and timing of commercial leases, and that there is a reckoning coming, but shouldn’t prices have already plummeted in anticipation of that?
And whole industries appear to be dying, print media, online media, residential realty (as you mention), marketing, advertising… I read about massive layoffs but I don’t see soup lines, or foreclosure signs or prices dropping.
I can’t figure it out.
I’ll leave it to Deco to pull the numbers for now, but I think that it is a reasonable surmise that well heeled retirees are adding to consumer spending in a way that they did not in 1978. Anyway, I’d be surprised if that were not the case.
As far as young people go, it would not surprise me if post teenage years young adult drop outs have not contributed to lower unemployment in the way we supposedly saw with near retirees some years ago as they simply gave up looking for jobs. You quit looking, you’re not counted.
I put a pause on looking at municipal debt, state and local pension obligations, about the time Trump got elected. Figured some of his initiatives related to energy and manufacturing and trade MIGHT lead to beneficial outcomes.
When Biden got elected, I said eff it and these people. Let the comet come, I’ll pick up the pieces later.
Or maybe technology will buy us out of our challenges. Who knows. Maybe Robbie the Robot will spin your meals out of thin air and the laws of action-reaction will no longer apply.
Yeah, free stuff … endlessly.
Ah, almost forgot again.
Cannot recall who were the musicians and who were the jazz guitar students [ Rufus, maybe?] , but this journeyman-like rendition popped up in my suggestions about a week or two ago.
Plaing it straight and from Japan.
Apparently it’s a thing over there. The archtops, or hollowbodies, the American songbook tunes.
If interested
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vDWhMrTHbbc&pp=QAFIBA%3D%3D
DNW,
In the mid-80s I did a rather deep dive on our nation’s debt and extrapolations on unfounded liabilities out into the future. I figured if our Congress acted soon, and tightened our nation’s fiscal belt we might have enough time to escape catastrophe.
The opposite happened and I kept waiting for the asteroid to hit. Still Congress did nothing. They actually hit the accelerator. And turbo charged the engine. And added a nitrous tank. Our ratio of debt as a percent of GDP is now in bizarro world.
Oh, and American birthrates have been going down since 1950, and continue to drop, which can’t be good for GDP growth.
Maybe the Canadian couple that moved to El Salvador in Barry’s link have the right idea.
DNW,
I’m definitely into jazz, but don’t play strings. I pretend to play brass and keyboards and occasionally punish audiences with my singing. (Harmonica is my best instrument, but people don’t typically want to hear 3, 45 minute sets of harmonica.)
You are correct that Japan has some marvelous jazz musicians.
Thanks for the link! That was great!
My band started playing “Green Dolphin Street” about a year ago. At first I didn’t get it. It seemed odd to me, and I was not a fan. It’s a tricky composition, with some unique chords and rhythms. But once we all got it together it was magical. Now it’s one of my favorites.
I don’t know how I missed it for so many years, but I started learning about it after I discovered how much I like the song. Musicians love covering it and there are many renditions and a lot of interesting versions. Even Vince Guaraldi covered it.
What really struck me is that it is from a movie and when I read about the movie it was nothing like what I imagined the movie would be, based on the melody. I assumed it was a 1950s or early ’60s movie about a couple struggling to make it in L.A. or San Francisco. Turns out it’s about whaling in New Zealand in the 1800s! The beautiful song you linked does not make me think about Victorian era whalers in the southern hemisphere!
I really only knew him from the later hits like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
rip eric carmen,
as goes lusitania?
https://twitter.com/alicia_smith19/status/1767653037806424447
But it’s not a booming job market.
Rufus:
There’s a bloodbath happening in tech.
_____________________________
Tech layoffs in 2024: A timeline
Technology companies have continued to lay off staff in 2024, despite improving fundamentals. Here’s an updated timeline of notable layoffs, and reasons why Big Tech is in turmoil.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3685936/tech-layoffs-in-2023-a-timeline.html
_____________________________
Though the layoffs are mostly attributed to over-hiring and right-sizing. some also mention AI as a culprit, which I would underline.
David Shapiro is my current goto guy on AI:
–David Shapiro, “42,000 Tech Layoffs in 2024 Already – AI is the cause – Deny, Downplay, Distract [Propaganda]”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67R0ISqJSs0
Tucker Carlson has become somewhat controversial as of late, but he is still a voice trying to amplify and broadcast a message of how our government is often acting in its own interests, not ours.
He had Mike Benz, founder of Foundation for Freedom Online on an hour long chat and in Tucker Carlson fashion he let’s Benz do most of the talking as he lays out the long march of government censorship from it’s early post WWII foundation to the current iteration of global censorship of Orwellian proportions.
Uncensored: The National Security State & the Inversion of Democracy
https://tuckercarlson.com/uncensored-the-national-security-state-the-inversion-of-democracy/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=na&utm_campaign=20240312_march12dailybrief&utm_content=314099
The story he tells is so fantastic, it seems impossible, here is a NBC story trying to discredit Benz with: “But before his stints in government and as a pundit, Benz appears to have been a pseudonymous alt-right content creator who courted and interacted with white nationalists and posted videos espousing racist conspiracy theories…”, so he must be on to something.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/michael-benz-rising-voice-conservative-criticism-online-censorship-rcna119213
@ Rufio,
My generally preferred version – giving credit of course to the enjoyable studio musician type straight covers – is the John Coltrane in Germany 1960 version. Which, you are familiar with and I have mentioned too many times before.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jWXEgJgh9zo&pp=ygUqQ29sdHJhbmUgZ3JlZW4gZG9scGhpbiBzdHJlZXQgZ2VybWFueSBsaXZl
Your remark marveling at the fact of an oddball historical melodrama producing a great jazz standard, has been repeated by many of us. Then of course there is Stella by Starlight too, from a picture about a haunted house.
But the one that takes the cake so to speak, has to be I’ll Remember April. I could not believe what I was seeing on the YouTube snippet. An Abbot and Costello movie? And what is that a string of cowboys down in the valley riding slowly in the dark?
Well, not cowboys exactly. But still ….
Re: Odd movie to jazz standard
Rufus, DNW:
I think of “My Foolish Heart” (1949), a pretty mediocre adaptation of a J.D. Salinger story, which soured Salinger forever on allowing another Hollywood film based on his work.
However, the title song became a jazz standard. My favorite cover is, of course, Bill Evans’:
–Bill Evans, “My Foolish Heart” (1962)
https://vimeo.com/232959
Evans was amazing in his prime.
Thanks, DNW and Huxley, I didn’t know the origins of those songs. Abbott and Costello? Hilarious!
LOL Truth be told I couldn’t make the song out and kept trying to catch a couple bars of melody. Eventually I caught two and got “These Foolish Things” out of my head, and then with the help of Connie Francis on YouTube was finally able to say, Oh! That ….song.
We were in a bistro on Kercheval a couple years back and I was feeding the keyboardist pianist American Songbook suggestions and a twenty and during a break he came by and chatted. He brought up his relationship with Bill Evans and I nodded knowingly, picturing Errol Garner or someone I saw on tv as a kid, in my head.
But it worked out. He was so happy not to play Elton John, Paul Anka, and Neil Sedaka shit that I probably didn’t have to tip him. Ha
Jon, it’s a (Jewish) leap year, i.e., 13 months instead of 12. This occurs, IIRC, seven times each 19-year cycle. A second Adar is added just before official spring, which additional month pushes Passover, generally aligned with Easter—the Last Supper being a Passover Seder—back by several weeks (and Purim comes exactly a month before Passover).
– – – – – –
Rufus, think of it as a transfer of populations…(?)
“Really, really odd”…continued…
I’m not an expert in such things, BUT I figger that since “Biden” lies about EVERYTHING, and since “he” is most certainly not ashamed about lying BIG, then there are bound to be certain, um—let’s call them—discrepancies between “Biden”-World/”Biden”-Speak and reality.
This being the case, we SHOULD EXPECT that things are “really, really odd”.
To expect otherwise would, in fact, be “really, really odd”…. (As they say, “Who ya’ gonna believe? The politicians, and their pathetic Media poodles, or yer own lyin’ eyes??”)
Here’s an article (or two) that might offer some “assistance” (to those who are more adept at understanding economic matters than I am)…
+ Bonus:
“One Career Economist Exposes The Lies Of Modern Economics”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/one-career-economist-exposes-lies-modern-economics
“Economic Earthquake Ahead? The Cracks Are Spreading Fast”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/economic-earthquake-ahead-cracks-are-spreading-fast
“The world’s drowning in debt — brace yourself for economic turbulence”—
https://nypost.com/2024/02/21/opinion/the-worlds-drowning-in-debt-brace-yourself-for-economic-turbulence/
“Ex-Walmart CEO Says US Consumers Reaching ‘Breaking Point’ “—
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/ex-walmart-ceo-says-us-consumers-reaching-breaking-point
Really, really, REALLY not so odd (continued)…
“Legacy of Deception: Democrat-led, taxpayer-funded machine exposed anew for misleading Americans;
“False realities, untrue narratives and outright lies are putting the country on a whipsaw rollercoaster where truths are surfacing long after lies have affected elections or official actions, experts say. Even worse, it’s paid for from public funds.”—
https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/hlddemocrat-fed-taxpayer-funded-machine-exposed-anew-deceiving
Having said/read/been fed all this…THERE IS NO FREAKIN’ WAY that anyone could POSSIBLY CLAIM that the Democrats stole the 2020 election.
(OTOH, one COULD INDEED SAY that they “Fortified” them(!)… But how the pluperfect could one possibly KNOW what “Fortified” is supposed to mean??
And for an answer to this vital—and fascinating—question, we are now joined by our Roving Language Correspondent, the Honourable Humpty Dumpty…still the world’s leading authority on the subject…even if he’s just a shell of his old self (heh, heh, ahem…)…
Officials at West Point reportedly remove the phrase, “Duty, Honor, Country” from their mission statement.*
* See https://johnalucas6.substack.com/p/west-point-deletes-duty-honor-country
Something fascinating on the DDR (or GDR, AKA East Germany), which strives to be as objective as possible…and contains some information that might not ordinarily be known…some light among the darkness, as it were…
“The Stories of a Forgotten Nation”
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-stories-of-a-forgotten-nation/
H/T Powerline blog.
File under: The Lives of Other Others….
From the Independent:
Flight documents show MH370 was ‘buried in an ocean trench by pilot’, says Boeing expert.
*
From the Babylon Bee:
Haitian Cannibal Gangs Pour Over US Border After Seeing How Fat Americans Are.
*
Photos of Conan O’Brian and his “Haiti Is Great Already” shirt are also making the rounds.
*
The JD Salinger documentary mentioned the novels he left behind. At least some of them were supposed to be released by now.