Boss Baby

The tech sector is in the middle of the great reset. They had this in 2000 and we are seeing it again in 2022. They will not stay down long, the rich white Bros of the Valley and their Indian sidekicks, much like Queen Victoria and her Indian Manservant, Abdul Karim, will persevere and remain intact like the Monarchy does today and did so for all these centuries. No one fucks with money, power and the pursuit of more money or power.

We have a Class system based on Meritocracy, a myth like Religion, based on a myth about a Man who was the Son of a Mythical Being born of a Virgin who created the word and its universe. Uh huh. The story of the bootstraps was created by Horatio Alger who held the powerful belief that hard work, honesty and determination can conquer all obstacles. Today their Association exists to They created the Association to recognize men and women of outstanding achievement, and as a way to remind Americans of the limitless possibilities that exist through the free-enterprise system.

That last statement is the kicker, the free enterprise system. aka Capitalism. Yes I doubt anyone has ever read that book or any by Marx about Socialism; However, the Bible they piecemeal read and extrapolate the “facts” that support their convoluted reasoning behind their beliefs but this is America and by GOD we Trust.

As the announcements pile in this week about Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and the Crypto King collapse they have all one thing in common, White Men who are apologizing for doing bad things. Okay thanks. The new apology tour is now the CEO doing the mea culpa. It follows this format as the WSJ noted:

The Tech Sector Is Taking a Beating. Here’s Why

Nov. 10, 2022 Megan Bobrowsky The Wall Street Journal

Tech leaders who spent years eagerly adding to their staffs are now lining up to deliver a different message: Sorry, we grew too fast.

Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday joined the ranks of tech executives offering a mea culpa, when the chief executive of Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. said the company would cut 11,000 workers, or 13% of its staff. Mr. Zuckerberg told employees that he had believed the sharp shift online after the onset of Covid-19 would be permanent. “I got this wrong and I take responsibility for that,” he said.

Days earlier, Twitter Inc. co-founder Jack Dorsey, who ran the company until last year, offered contrition after the social-media platform’s new owner, Elon Musk, cut head count by roughly 50%. “I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that,” Mr. Dorsey tweeted on Sunday.

Facebook parent Meta Platforms plans to cut 11,000 employees, or 13% of its staff.Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency trading firm Alameda Research and troubled crypto exchange FTX, on Thursday told employees, “I’m sorry,” as he detailed what had occurred in recent days.

The pattern has been repeated at companies across the tech industry as job cuts have mounted in recent months. “I take responsibility for choosing to grow our team faster,” Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio Inc., TWLO -5.70%decrease; red down pointing triangle said in a September letter to staff when he announced he was cutting 11% of the cloud-communications company’s workforce. “And now, I also own the decision to become more focused—resulting in this layoff.”

The CEOs’ statements reflect, in part, the shock of the sharp downturn that worsened across the tech sector recently. They also convey the illusion of permanence that can set in during boom times—especially in an industry that was on an extended growth run before the Covid-19 pandemic—despite the longstanding conventional wisdom that, as investors are often warned, past performance isn’t a reliable indicator of future results. For some of these executives, it is also the first time they need to navigate a significant economic downturn.

Tech companies experienced a jump in the amount of time people spent online during the Covid-19 lockdowns that began in 2020. Industry leaders responded by hiring briskly to take advantage of the opportunity and amass talent.

Mr. Zuckerberg had expanded head count at his company by more than 80% since the start of the pandemic, to roughly 87,000 employees. Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOG 0.27%increase; green up pointing triangle added nearly 68,000 staffers, a roughly 57% increase, from the start of 2020 through this September. Twitter’s staff more than doubled during the first two years of the pandemic. Twilio tripled its staff from the start of 2020 through this September, to 8,992 people.

Fast forward two years and demand for everything from digital advertising to computer chips has slumped sharply, as people resume routines and a deteriorating economic outlook weighs on consumer spending. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index is down more than 30% so far this year.

Companies were staffing up to meet the moment and stay ahead of rivals, said Jeff Hunter, CEO of Talentism, an executive-coaching firm. “There’s all this stuff happening. They’re bringing in a ton of money. They don’t want to lose the talent war,” he said. “And then the party just stops.”

Mr. Zuckerberg, in his remarks on Wednesday, looked back at the surge in tech revenue growth at the start of the pandemic. “Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments,” he said. “Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected.”

The cuts came after the social-media giant posted two consecutive quarters of declining ad revenue for the first time in the company’s history.

Social-media companies alone in recent weeks have shown the exit door to more than 16,000 employees. But the layoffs span a wider spectrum of the tech industry. Chip maker Intel Corp. INTC -3.84%decrease; red down pointing triangle has said it is cutting its workforce, Peloton Interactive Inc. PTON -7.60%decrease; red down pointing triangle has roughly halved its staff over four rounds of layoffs and online broker Robinhood Markets Inc. HOOD -8.18%decrease; red down pointing trianglesaid in August that it was eliminating about 23% of its positions.

The impetus to hire quickly was strong during the pandemic, when many tech goods and services were in short supply.

Take Amazon AMZN -1.84%decrease; red down pointing triangle.com Inc. As the pandemic set in, the online retail company became somewhat of a lifeline for many Americans who relied on it to deliver daily goods while they were stuck at home. Amazon doubled its workforce from 2020 through March 2022 to about 1.5 million employees and opened hundreds of new warehouses, sorting centers and other logistics facilities to address the surging demand. Its profit nearly tripled.

More recently, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has been trying to move similarly quickly to reset the business for a different reality after one of the worst stretches of financial performance in the company’s history. Amazon’s blue-collar workforce fell by almost 100,000 employees during the company’s second quarter, leaving the company with roughly 1.5 million staff members at the end of the period—though it has said it is staffing up at its warehouses to meet the expected holiday demand.

Some of the layoffs now also reflect a somewhat natural effort by companies to reassess their business in a way that was difficult to do during an extended boom period, said former Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO -1.14%decrease; red down pointing triangle CEO John Chambers, who is now a tech investor. “Growth covers up a lot of mistakes—12 years of growth uninterrupted means that we get a little bit heavy,” he said.

“When you’re in growth mode, it’s tough to always take the time to do all the readjustments you need to do,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, which said in July it would slow hiring for the rest of the year. “Moments like this give us a chance,” he added.

Executives who have had to announce cuts are hoping that they won’t need to learn the lesson again.

After Snap Inc., SNAP -6.03%decrease; red down pointing triangle the owner of Snapchat, said in August that it was parting ways with 20% of its employees—the company’s ranks had swelled by 65% in two years—CEO Evan Spiegel said: “The extent of this reduction should substantially reduce the risk of ever having to do this again.”

Sorry, not sorry is basically the gist of this as they continue to have immense control, shares and of course a paycheck that will buy them all the cargo shorts, hoodies and island getaways they need. So hey whatever!

Irony that the same day Amazon said they were laying off and re-evaluating their massive building of warehouses and second headquarters and third headquarters, remember that little game and how Virginia an and Nashville won the draw? Yeah me either; well that day Bezos decided to declare that he too was going all in in the Philanthropy game and donated money to his designated winner – wait for it – Dolly Parton. I am sure Dolly will do right with it as she is a legit player but hey his ex wife did it right has given a large portion of her wealth without issue direct to agencies and groups who are using the money to serve those in need. Why a third party there? The rich do this all the time, they have massive foundations and which it is easier to donate to them directly and with that they can donate only a small percentage of the required amount by law and in turn use that to invest and directly buy up say all the farmland in America like Bill Gates is doing under the guise of foundation wealth. Bill Gates, America’s largest sharecropper landlord. How rich! Oh a pun!

And of course the stories about what it is like “working” for the most powerful, the most rich and the most thin skinned, Elon Musk, are raging about the universe from print to the interwebs. I think this in the LA Times is one that defines the persona of the Baby Boss Musk and this in the New York Times about his lack of humor and his ambition to be thought of as funny is another. That debacle on Saturday Night Live rings to mind when he proclaimed he was on the spectrum. Now if only DeSantis would follow that lead.

Another humorless but unapologetic CEO, Howard Schultz, will once again deny the reality that many Starbucks employees would like to join a union and collectively bargain for better pay, schedules and the rest of the shit he claims to already give them. Irony that today is Red Cup Day where over 100 stores across the country are planning a Strike to send that message that he refuses to listen.

And with that the tour remains in tact and ongoing. Sincerity be dammed, take it and like it. Elon will be by later with a sink to wash away your tears. Yes white collar folks you may have a Christmas bonus and it will be a layoff notice. You see Amazon already has over 100% turnover the warehouses, FedEx and UPS have already begun cutting and with that those special packages might be later this year as well. As for the supposed shortages well the drivers are struggling to find pickups and that may also be due to the most powerful cargo company in the world fucking with shippers. But no would they do that? Yes they would. And with that our beloved banking industry has begun to cut. God I hope that my Karen downstairs gets a nice stocking stuffer right up her ass, we can only hope, but once you cut to the bone you have nowhere to go but to top, the head,and with that I expect the double dippers, the middle managers, the home based workers to see change be it pocket or work related, change is gonna come.

A Weak Review

Actually I am feeling quite fine. I am not sleeping great and got up at 5 am to move scarves and winter clothes around, a compulsion that I think stems from my need to have all my home perfect at all times. That was one thing that Covid does to one, the need to rest while also being fanatically clean. Trips to storage to get winter blankets and other accessories and the need to redecorate after being trapped again in quarantine reminded me of those early days where fussing about was never enough, and in this case I bought an expensive Miele Coffee/Espresso Machine to replace the three different coffee makers/grinders I have. I am sure that this will end as I am on day two of negative tests and dropping temp, but I want to avoid the bounce back Covid so I am on varying Chinese herbs to cleanse and cool the liver heat that generates from illness. But isolation aside I have found it quite amusing to wander about full on mask and yell, “Don’t come in this elevator or stand close, put on a mask, I have Covid!” There is great pleasure in watching people get confused, some comply and everyone is relieved and thanks me. We have come a long way from Typhoid Covid days.

I also made the decision to return to work on the 29th and 30th of the Month as my entry back into Substitute Teaching here in Jersey City. The schools a distinct counter to the high rises and money that the city espouses to have and explains the insane rents as the migration from the even more expensive city across the Hudson has done more to push people to move than any Governor of Texas or Florida ever could. And with that I would love a free trip to Martha’s Vineyard. Call me Carmen, I am from Columbia……. Tennessee but HOLA! That act of bizarre human trafficking, funded by a State using Covid relief funds, chartering two planes and landing in two different air bases and then finally arriving in Massachusetts without a word of advanced notice takes hubris and arrogance to new heights. The buses to NYC, DC and to the VP home have been equally an odd strange trip to be on when you have literally risked your life to come to a country that is in supposed need of workers. Well not those ones I guess.

The interesting aspect is that both Governors aspire to be President of the United States. Really? Are we that fucked up a country that we would elect either of them. Abbot alone with his handling of Uvalde, the energy and weather crisis of Texas alone should disqualify him. As for DeSantis the man is disturbing to say the least in both behavior and policy. He is the Prince Charles of the Aggrieved White Males in the U.S.

Which brings me to the death of the Queen, long live the King. And with that Charles who has been in training and in waiting all of his life finally assumes the throne. And assume he has. First up was the fussy videos of him signing documents, demanding that the varying items on the desk be removed and another with the pen leaking, the date wrong and the wandering up to reprimand the Secretary’s for this always happening. I loved those as apparently the Prince/King has a habit of asking aides to get items accidentally tossed in the bin to retrieve and is so known for writing notes in spider like penmanship that they are called Black Spider notes. God save the King! Diana was lucky to end it and perhaps die as none of these family members seem to age well. And with the Monarchy rumbling along the idea of how the Commonwealth will continue is the real age old question and with America at the cusp of losing Democracy I wonder if we can get a redo on that Independence thing? Call me Daddy Charles!

And with Europe on the cusp of many countries examining Populism/Fascism we are sure to ask ourselves if the Great World War is perhaps veering for a third series. We are asking ourselves if we are the brink of a new Civil War so this too must be a matter of import given what we are seeing in the Ukraine at present. And that is now like the many wars and conflicts we have watched from afar that seem to have no end but this time I am not sure if we can just sideline ourselves in a way that permits this to continue. But Iraq and Afghanistan are fresh in our memories and again we have shown repeatedly that we cannot pass on nor share Democratic ideals with any other country despite our efforts be they diplomatic or militaristic, so perhaps that explains the Trump doctrine.

And yet the American Dream persists and the migrants journey’s continue to affirm that reality and yet we are doing what we do best, kick the can or in this case the person, down the road to the next with no real solutions in site. Not the first nor the last time we have used people as human pawns with regards to political jockeying. We have a massive housing crisis in this country, the irony that the Vineyard, vacation home of the Obama’s, is a town that cannot afford to even offer housing to Physicians they have recruited to work in their hospitals. And this exists in all the wealthy playgrounds, from the Hampton’s to Aspen, workers and others who are not among the uber wealthy cannot afford to live there. How these rich folks get food is beyond me but they seem to manage. Perhaps they bring their own. Not food, staff.

Again the housing crisis is not just workers it is for the many transient individuals plagued with mental illness and other acute disorders that prevent or limit them from fully integrating into society. Numerous cities are trying numerous measures to house these individuals, Seattle has had mixed results with tiny house encampments as has Los Angeles but the idea is solid, but frankly I do not think these should be for these individuals that are in a mental health crisis; however, a they are well suited to single dwellers, workers and others who may find this arrangement conducive if well managed and operated. And in some cases other cities are modeling this and are moving forward with the concept so it is better than nothing. But we are at a housing crisis with regards to rentals as well in many cities as work from home and again foreign investment push more and more ordinary workers into the streets. And when Trailer parks are now big investment opportunities, so what does that tell you? And the problems continue with global warming as despite it all we want to seemingly live in Fire Zones or Flood Zones and with that the damages and costs will continue to rise along with the temps.

And with that we move into the last of my reviews, reality TV which shows us the best of us, okay a little bit as Drag Race and Amazing Race do have moments that are memorable in a good way when team work and positivity show how you can do well, but in the best of times it is also the worst of us. I cannot think of a show that does this better than Big Brother or any of the Housewives franchises. The social experiment that CBS does every summer putting a group of young people in a shitty fake home and fucks with them by subjecting them to grueling competitions and bizarre challenges is one that I have never understood after the first season, I checked in on occasion but largely out as the discussions and posturing is something that is beyond idiotic. The constant refrain, “have blood on my hands” and “put on the resume” are to say the least the most idiotic of phrases that endless “super fans” seem to repeat ad infinitum as a mantra. The other is the discussion of the 750K they will earn after they are declared a winner by a Jury of their former housemates. That is again largely laughable as with taxes they will see 37% removed immediately and depending on where they live another percent for income tax. So here in New Jersey I would see an additional 10% or so added to that, meaning I would earn about 353K. That would be a down payment on a house. Seriously. But to the aspirants they are sure they can buy a home, pay off student loans and travel. Start with a math class or find an accountant would be my suggestion.

Then we have the housewives who seem to have tastes that end with 10K handbags and 500 dollar hats. What the flying fuck? And yet one wife, the infamous Erika Girardi has 750K in earrings that were paid for from a victim fund and she refuses to either acknowledge the victims nor acknowledge wrongdoing at all. You are divorcing the man so call him a liar and crook and a cheater, the LA Times sure does. Getting a publicist and a therapist and off that show would be three things I would do to add to my resume and not have blood on my hands.

The last one I find still deeply infused with some form of religious torture and abuse is Survivor. There is something wrong with Mark Burnett to literally think this is Robinson Crusoe meets Cast Away which are works of fiction and should remain that way. The insanity over again 1M dollars which will be taxed has demonstrated a desperation and duplicity that rarely ends well for the supposed sole Survivor. I know my Doorman loves all these shows, a man hitting the over 200 lb scale, uses a walker and has a marginal intellectual capacity tells me all I need to know. The reality of this is the only real millionaire is Mark Burnett and frankly he is a religious crackpot who gave us Trump who actually believed his own show about him. Another false idol there which is not lost on anyone who watches that bullshit show. And a review of where are they now shows that many returned to their jobs or endlessly competing on version after another which makes one think that is their reality, a quick infusion of cash that you can blow or save, but life changing, no.

And as I move into the weekend I don’t think much about the endless Trump trials and sagas. Some more amusing than others, the Lindell claim about the FBI seizing his phone at a Hardee’s drive thru which is not only bizarre but likely missing a truth in the same way he is missing a screw. That and the endless Attorneys who seem to be in the business of hiring more Attorneys as they hitched their wagon to Trump. Which tells me that getting a law license is a lot easier than one thinks and proves that most Attorney’s are raving assholes and morons.

As for inflation and the economy, the reality is that we don’t have any measure of comparison nor way to get the big picture or the little one straight. One day Dow down, next up. The Feds raise the rates but spending goes on. The need for workers belies a recession but the reality is that the cuts and lay offs are happening just in the white collar world and mid-managment in the business that were once the darlings of Wall Street. The Pelotons, the Netflix and Chill and of course the Crytpo currencies. Start ups are starting down and staring down at a balance sheet which they have never had to do and it reminds me of 2000 when the dot coms bombed. This is much more parallel to that then 2008 that hit a wider swath of individuals. The rich that are on paper and received margin loans to buy those Aspen homes are getting called and with that see that too change sooner versus later. I do think Americans are in denial and always have been about housing and education, they truly believe they are valuable assets. We have finally seen that truth exposed and the other is coming as well. See a lot more Ivy League Degrees competing on Survivor and Big Brother.

As I am fortunate and privileged and just fucking lucky I do think about the world outside my window a great deal. I get checked at the door when I walk into the public schools and from them I realize how fucked up we are. I am not sure we are going to find the great saviors in the next generation, we have been saying that for many a generation now and so now you tell me, really? I see what I have always seen, some bright shining lights and many many more dim ones. The need to be heard, to be seen dominates the landscape. There is not a post on the comment pages of WaPo, Twitter, Reddit, Facebook or Instagram that are irrelevant and unnecessary, mine included. But we are desperate for connection to anything outside that window and with that we tap into our most darkest of impulses and rages. I buy expensive clothes and return most of them. I buy expensive household goods and keep them. I rarely talk to anyone without it being me being in full on Teacher mode or in automat where I nod and try to extricate myself as it is a waste of time and energy, and with that validating my no compromise promise I frankly feel no need to try. Have I given up? No I have just stopped caring and I give only what I need to when I need to. Energy is a source and I am conserving mine.

Below is an op-ed, and this sums up what I think we do and what we need to do. And we will do all of the wrong things and do nothing we need. That is America.

Opinion How to counter today’s tribalism and build ‘a more perfect union’

By Bernice B. Donald and Don R. Willett The Washington Post September 16, 2022

Bernice B. Donald is a judge on the U.S Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Don R. Willett is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

Federal judges rarely write newspaper op-eds. Rarer still: a joint op-ed by two assumed foes. In this era of poisonous tribalism, what could these two judges agree on?

After all, one is an African American female Obama appointee, the other a White male Trump appointee.

For starters, we’re friends. More, we respect each other as judicial siblings committed to a shared oath; our robes are black, not red or blue. In this coarse and graceless age, believing that our similarities eclipse our differences might be derided as Pollyannish. So be it.

Saturday is Constitution Day. But let’s begin with the Declaration of Independence, which in 2026 will mark its semiquincentennial — 250 years.

The Declaration is aspirational, debuting a uniquely American theory: that government exists to secure people’s inborn, individual, inalienable rights. The Constitution is architectural, erecting a structure to achieve those ideals. But the union was very far from perfect at the founding: One-third of the Declaration’s signers were enslavers.

Still, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was right in 1963 when he called the nation’s founding documents “a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.” While he recognized that America had “defaulted” on that note in failing to recognize equality for African Americans, he also knew that those founding documents made possible a government that could correct itself over time. He was echoing Frederick Douglass, who a century earlier declared that the Declaration’s promises of liberty and equality are eternal, even if America betrayed those promises.

King implored Americans not to tear down the nation’s heritage but to live up to it. Doing so might seem difficult these days, when entrenched tribalism threatens to swamp citizens’ shared attachment to the nation. But that makes trying all the more important. This Constitution Day, here are five suggestions to help form a “more perfect union.”

Log off. In today’s hot-take culture stoked by social media, the art of disagreeing agreeably seems quaint. The snarling, sneering and sniping are on full display in a realm we know well: modern law schools. Online incivility seems to fuel real-life boorishness. Earlier this year, a panel at Yale Law School brought together lawyers from the left and right to tout the importance of free speech. Chaos ensued. That is what happens when views held by the “other side” are deemed no longer debatable but disreputable. Better to reject venomous online voices — and promote civility in the physical world.

Learn up. The civics IQ of “We the People” is not exactly Mensa-level. According to the 2022 Annenberg Civics Survey, most American adults cannot name all three branches of government, and 25 percent cannot name a single one. The judicial branch is likely the least understood — especially by those who depict the judiciary as hijacked by craven politics. Facts are hostile witnesses. The Supreme Court’s rate of dissent today is no higher than it was in 1945, when eight of nine justices had been appointed by the same president. Besides, fixating on the Supreme Court is distorting: Ninety-nine percent of federal cases go no higher than regional circuit courts. That’s where we serve, and we can attest, as research has shown, that roughly 98 percent of circuit-court decisions are unanimous — hardly a sign of ideologically driven judging.

Reach out. Genuine across-the-aisle friendships are rare today. According to an NBC News-Generation Lab poll last month, about half of college sophomores say they wouldn’t date, or even choose as a roommate, someone who didn’t vote as they did in the 2020 presidential election. Americans too often hunker down in like-minded echo chambers, marinating in confirmation bias, rarely encountering, much less befriending, anyone who sees the world differently. Cross-party friendships are no easy feat. But if Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg could do it, so can we — and so can you.

Pull back. Many Americans view everything through a political prism. Entire identities get distilled to partisan labels. The places where attachments were found — such as civic and religious institutions — have thinned out, and politics has rushed into the vacuum. Political strife is nothing new, but things have radically intensified. Regrettably, some judges contribute to the noxiousness, penning acidic opinions that fuel a perception of judges as ideological combatants rather than evenhanded arbiters. But the toxicity is culture-wide. Fact: There is more to life than politics.

Plug in. President Jimmy Carter put it powerfully during his 1981 farewell address when he said he would be taking up “the only title in our democracy superior to that of president, the title of citizen.” American citizenship is not a spectator sport. Be engaged citizens, not enfeebled (or enraged) bystanders. Self-government is not self-perpetuating. This raucous republic belongs to us all, and the secret sauce is a sleeves-rolled-up citizenry.

This Constitution Day, if any identity should define us as Americans, let it be one that transcends ideological and demographic differences: Our common identity as heirs to a rich civic inheritance.

Morning Train

My baby takes the morning train; He works from nine to five and then; He takes another home again; To find me waitin’ for him

Well that is a romantic notion of commuting and apparently one spouse is at home working. Sounds familiar yes/no? The reality is that while we are still spouting the myth of the Great Resignation it was more like the great layoffs, followed by the ones who returned to jobs that they needed as soon as possible and many who did not. These are all the help wanted signs you see in windows of restaurants, small shops, some banks, hotels and retail outlets. You do not see a desperate sign flashing above the major corporations for white collar gigs with great pay and benefits. Why? Well few quit and some just shuffled deck chairs on the Titanic. Many white collar workers had some leverage and used it to move up the ladder of meritocracy and negotiated a deal that worked for them. A rare state in our attitude toward labor. If we valued labor and workers so much then why such a hard push for Unionzing many of the service/labor jobs across the country, from Starbucks to Amazon, leading Howard Shultz to emerge from retirement to take back the CEO gig and stop the movement to unionize the stores. I am shocked Jeff Bezos has not done so but he is busy with his rocket ship to space. Elon Musk is another who has had many suits with regards to discrimination and harassment filed against his business yet not a big lover of unions which might reign that in. Ask yourself: If unions are such a problem why are CEO’s against them? Why not let the workers they value make that decision for themselves. If they don’t want one or do and then change their mind it is either keep it or dump it. Amazon has created it own subset of the concept why not Starbucks? Again if you are pro worker why are you not negotiating with them honestly and openly?

I work a gig job, Substitute Teacher and I have never heard one word from the State or City union agents, from the National Teachers Unions or anyone. NO ONE. I hate my job. HATE IT. You think it is easy for a 63 year old woman to change careers and find a job? Sure at a retail store or hotel, which does what for me an educated professional who is able to transition but has no “experience” other than apparently the ability to process a credit card. And for the record, many of those same businesses are over hiring to cover the outs via sick leave or walk outs so many are not getting full time hours at all. Again more bullshit over hiring practices continues. And with that they are back to multi gigging. Okay thanks, I will just sit in a room all day and watch kids shuffle in and out. At least I can walk in and out without some moron documenting my time in the toilet.

Anyone who has been working from day one of the pandemic was considered an “essential” worker and that included all of the staff at the Kushner Buildings who did not receive hazard or extra pay for working, accepting packages in the tons, showing units as people were moving in and out at a rapid clip, cleaning said units, decontaminating the public areas on a regular basis or just regular maintenance. And many did not either despite all the hysteria over Covid and that it would kill you as soon as look at you. How is Dr. Fauci doing? Well I know from varying reports that during any of the Covid meetings he was maskless and yet is Covid “fear” that led him cancel attending the Journalism dinner where Biden arrived late, and so far he and Jill are still Covid free. I have never trusted, respected or liked that man and while I wish him well, RETIRE sir. Again some jobs need not to be replaced or filled, his being one.

Covid has continued to be the supposed reason behind why Companies have decided to push back on return to office dates. Really? Have the asked or surveyed how many of their associates have already had Covid? Or how often the attend public events? I bet a lot. So now it is about cost of gas and crime and whatever other issue that employees without a union can find to NOT go back to the office. I have noticed when I am near Train, PATH, Subway or Ferry terminals during rush hour there are people and they are in work wear. Some of it has changed but go to the popular watering holes near major businesses around 5 and they are packed, every day. So either they are wandering from home or are back in the office. I think it is a mix of both and that is where said networking occurs.

So where are we economically? I suspect that white collar will take a greater hit now with the current downturn as they are all that is left. Those who refuse to return to the office and those who took new gigs as many of the companies feeling the need to load the payroll will also be cutting. Look to the current crop of layoffs in the Bitcoin world and given this assholes attitude it doesn’t seem quite a loss. And with that the housing market now that interest rates have risen will be going the way of the wind, many many who switched to Real Estate will be finding themselves out of a home. Can’t say I feel bad about that one. And folks who moved to remotesville to a dump they were going to flop/flip/update and over paid will also be hurting when the Bell rings and they either have to move back into the city they just left and find renting to be a stranglehold on their wallets as urban cores have raised rents into double digit percentage points, as people are back baby!! Or are they? How they are paying these astronomical prices must be through Only Fans. Seriously there are 7K penthouses in Jersey City, why. Live in Manhattan if you are paying that price. Well again four to a shack up is more like it as we are seeing almost all two bedrooms here with at least three moving in, subletting and other means to pay for the rents. So it is not Nirvana and paradise in the least.

So if you are one of the coddled class you enjoy it, I suspect your time is coming to an end. Maybe it is time to join a Union.

Why the return to the office isn’t working

“I don’t gain anything besides a commute.”

By Rani Molla Jun 10, 2022, Vox for Recode

Andres is back to the office three days a week, and like many knowledge workers, he’s not happy about it. He says that while he and the other executive assistants at his Boston law firm have been forced back, the attorneys haven’t been following the rules. That’s partly because the rules don’t quite make sense, and people in all types of jobs are only coming in because they have to, not because there’s a good reason to go in.

“People have adapted to remote work, and truthfully, the firm has done a tremendous job at adapting in the pandemic,” said Andres, who would prefer going in two days, as long as others were actually there. “But I think it’s more the returning to work that they’re struggling on.” He, like a number of other office workers, spoke with Recode anonymously to avoid getting in trouble with his employer.

Andres enjoys working from home and thinks he does a good job of it — and it allows him to escape a long commute that has only gotten 45 minutes longer thanks to construction projects on his route.

The majority of Americans don’t work from home, but among those who do, there’s a battle going on about where they’ll work in the future. And it’s not just people who enjoy remote work who are upset about the return to the office.

Those who want to be remote are upset because they enjoyed working from home and don’t understand why, after two years of doing good work there, they have to return to the office. People who couldn’t wait to go back are not finding the same situation they enjoyed before the pandemic, with empty offices and fewer amenities. Those who said they prefer hybrid — 60 percent of office workers — are not always getting the interactions with colleagues they’d hoped for.

The reasons the return to the office isn’t working out are numerous. Bosses and employees have different understandings of what the office is for, and after more than two years of working remotely, everyone has developed their own varied expectations about how best to spend their time. As more and more knowledge workers return to the office, their experience at work — their ability to focus, their stress levels, their level of satisfaction at work — has deteriorated. That’s a liability for their employers, as the rates of job openings and quits are near record highs for professional and business services, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

There are, however, ways to make the return to the office better, but those will require some deep soul-searching about why employers want employees in the office and when they should let it go.

The current situation

For now, many employees are just noticing the hassle of the office, even if they’re going in way less than they did pre-pandemic. This is what’s known as the hybrid model, and even though people like the remote work aspect of it, for many it’s still unclear what the office part of it is for.

“If I go into the office and there are people but none of them are on my team, I don’t gain anything besides a commute,” Mathew, who works at a large payroll company in New Jersey, said. “Instead of sitting at my own desk, I’m sitting at a desk in Roseland.”

Mathew’s company is asking people to come in three days a week, but he says people are mostly showing up two.

Further complicating things is that, while the main reason hybrid workers cite for wanting to go into the office is to see colleagues, they also don’t want to be told when to go in, according to Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford professor who, along with other academics, has been conducting a large, ongoing study of remote workers called WFH Research.

Employees say that management has yet to really penalize people for failing to follow office guidance, likely out of fear of alienating a workforce in a climate where it’s so hard to hire and retain employees. Many others moved farther from the office during the pandemic, making the commute harder. The result is circular: People go into the office to see other people but then don’t actually see those people so they stop going into the office as much.

With 70 percent of office workers globally now back in the office at least one day a week, the excitement many people felt a few months ago is wearing off. For many, that novelty is turning into an existential question: Why are we ever here?

“It was sort of like the first day of school when you’re back from summer vacation and it’s nice to see people and catch up with them,” Brian Lomax, who works at the Department of Transportation in Washington, DC and who is expected to come in two days a week, said. “But now it’s, ‘Oh, hey, good to see you,’ and then you go on about your day,” an experience he says is the same as working from home and reaching out to people via Microsoft Teams.There’s actually been an uptick in virtual meetings, despite the return to office

Most of the people we spoke to use software like Teams, Slack, and Zoom to communicate even while they’re in the office, making the experience similar to home. If one person in a meeting is on a video call from home — say, because they’re immunocompromised, or they have child care duties, or it just happens to be the day they work from home that week — everyone is. There’s actually been an uptick in virtual meetings, despite the return to the office, according to Calendly. In April, 64 percent of meetings set up through the appointment scheduling software included videoconferencing or phone details, compared with 48 percent a year earlier.

One issue is that hybrid means different things from company to company and even team to team. Typically, it seems employers are asking workers to come in a set number of days per week, usually two or three. Some employers are specifying which days; some are doing it by teams; some are leaving it up to individual workers. Almost half of office visits are just once a week — and over a third of these visits are for less than six hours, according to data from workplace occupancy analytics company Basking.io as reported by Bloomberg. The middle of the week tends to be much busier than Mondays and Fridays, when there are empty cubicles as far as the eye can see.

There’s also a disconnect between why employees think they’re being called in. Employees cite their company’s sunk real estate investments, their bosses’ need for control, and their middle managers’ raison d’etre. Employers, meanwhile, think going into the office is good for creativity, innovation, and culture building. Nearly 80 percent of employees think they’ve been just as or more productive than they were before the pandemic, while less than half of leaders think so, according to Microsoft’s Work Trends Index.

Employers and employees generally tend to agree that a good reason to go into the office is to see colleagues face to face and onboard new employees. Data from Time Is Ltd. found that employees that started during the pandemic are collaborating with less than 70 percent of colleagues and clients as their tenured peers would have been at this point. Slack’s Future Forum survey found that while executives were more likely to say people should come into the office full time, they are less likely to do so themselves.

The nature of individuals’ jobs also determines how much, if at all, they think they should be in the office. Melissa, a government policy analyst in DC, is supposed to go in twice a week but has only been going in once because she says her work involves collaborating with others but not usually at the same time. She might write a draft, send it to others to read, and then they’ll make comments and perhaps, at some point, they all get together to talk about it.

“I see a lot of these ads for these teamwork apps — they always show these pictures of people sitting at a conference table and they have paper and all sorts of things on the wall and they’re really collaborating on product development or something,” Melissa said. “And I’m like, that’s not what we’re doing.” Still, she thinks that from managers’ perspectives, in-person is the gold standard, regardless of the actualities of the job.

“It feels like they just want people in the office,” she said.

It also depends on the pace of work. A financing services employee at Wells Fargo in Iowa said he works more efficiently at the office but that since his job consists of working on deals that come in sporadically throughout the day, that efficiency means he ends up wasting a lot of time playing on his phone or pacing around the office in between.

“What makes this so frustrating is that my wife will send me a photo of her and my 10-month-old son going out for a walk,” he said. “If I had a break at home, I’d go on a walk with them.”

Employers are certainly feeling the frustration from their employees and have been walking back how much they’re asking employees to be in the office. Last summer, office workers reported that their employers would allow them to work from home 1.6 days a week; now that’s gone up to 2.3 days, according to WFH Research.

Companies are rolling back return-to-office, or RTO, plans at law firms, insurance agencies, and everywhere in between. Even finance companies like JPMorgan Chase, whose CEO has been especially vocal about asking people to return to their offices, have loosened up.

Tech companies have long been at the forefront when it comes to allowing hybrid or remote work, and now even more tech companies, including Airbnb, Cisco, and Twitter, are joining the club. Even Apple, which has been much stricter than its peers in coaxing employees back to the office, has paused its plan to increase days in the office to three a week, after employee pushback and the resignation of a prominent machine learning engineer.

It seems like, for now, office workers have the upper hand. Many don’t expect to be penalized by management for not working from the office when they’re supposed to, partly because they don’t think management believes in the rules themselves.

“Our retention is better than expected and our employee engagement is better than expected, so I don’t think [our executives are] seeing any downside,” said Rob Carr, who works at an insurance company in Columbus, Ohio, where people are expected to be in three days a week but, as far as he’s seen, rarely go. “Honestly, if they were, I think they’d be cracking down, and they’re not.”

Carr himself goes into the office every day, but only because he and his wife downsized houses and moved a short bike ride from his office. Otherwise Carr, who is on the autism spectrum and says he doesn’t do well with in-person interactions, would be completely happy working from home as he is from his empty office.

“Hats off to Apple for innovation,” Carr said, “but they are, certainly from a Silicon Valley perspective, an old company.”

What to do about the broken return to the office

Solving the office conundrum is not easy, and in all likelihood it will be impossible to make everyone happy. But it’s important to remember that going to the office never really worked for everyone, it was just what everyone did. Now, two years after the pandemic sent office workers to their living rooms, their employers may have a chance to make more people happy than before.

“The problem right now is you’ve set something that’s unrealistic and doesn’t work, and when employees try it out and it doesn’t work, they give up,” Bloom, the Stanford professor, said. “If employees refuse to come in, it means the system isn’t working.” “If employees refuse to come in, it means the system isn’t working”

To fix that, employers should explore not only why they want people in the office, but whether bringing people into the office is achieving those goals. If the main reason to bring people back is to collaborate with colleagues, for example, they need to set terms that ensure that happens. That could mean making people who should be working together come in on the same days — a problem around which a whole cottage industry of remote scheduling software has cropped up.

That said, Bloom believes there’s no golden rule on how often it’s necessary to go in to get the benefits of the office. Importantly, when workers do come in, they shouldn’t be bogged down with anything they could be doing at home.

“First, figure out how many days a week or a month constructively would it be good to have people face to face, and that depends on how much time you spend on activities that are best in person,” he said, referring to things like onboarding, training, and socializing.

Employers need to be realistic about how much in-person work really needs to happen. Rather than making people come in a few times a week at random, where colleagues pass like ships in the night, they could all come in on the same day of the week or even once a month or quarter. And on those days, the perks of coming in have to be more than tacos and T-shirts, too. While fun, free food and swag aren’t actually good reasons to go to the office.

How much someone needs to come into the office might also vary by team or job type.

“For me, coming in to do teaching and to go to research seminars, that might be twice a week,” Bloom said. “But for other people, like coders, it may just be a big coding meeting and a few trainings once a month. For people in marketing and advertising, mad men, that’s very much around meetings, discussions, problem-solving — that may be two or three days.”

Another thing to consider, especially for those who truly like the office, is how they can get that experience with fewer of the downsides.

Currently, even employees who still like their offices a lot aren’t necessarily using them. Real estate services company JLL found that a third of office workers are using so-called “third places” like cafes and coworking spaces to work, even when they have offices they can go to.

Matt Burkhard, who leads a team of 30 at Flatiron Health, is one of those workers. He says he works better at an office than at home, where he has two young children. And while Burkhard enjoys going into his office and goes there once or twice per week, though he won’t be required to do so until later this summer, the trip to Manhattan isn’t always feasible, especially if he has to do child care for part of the day. So he’s been going to Daybase, a coworking space near his home in Hoboken, NJ, three or four times per week.

“I’m just a lot more focused when everyone is in the same place working,” Burkhard said, noting that he hasn’t asked his company to pay for the $50 a month membership fee.

For many office workers, the current state of affairs just isn’t working out. So they’re doing what they can to make their experience of work better, whether that means renting coworking space or not showing up for arbitrary in-office days. They don’t necessarily hate the office. What they hate is not having a good reason to be there.

The Gouging of America

Inflation is running rampant and with this prices from gas, food and of course rent is denting may pocketbooks of those who work in the real world. These are the folks like me who actually go into a place of business, mine a school, and must commute, stay on the property, go home and function as the primary caregiver/provider. This means cooking, buying food for said cooking, doing laundry (and for many that means a laundromat) and of course if they drive or use public transport that both have risks from the rising cost of gas,parking to of course increased violence be it road rage or transit rage that lends to added stress going to and from the workplace. The coddled class have felt NONE OF THIS.

I am amazed at the price of food as I live alone and I have yet to leave a store without the price of two bags hitting just under $100 bucks. I do buy almost exclusively organic and am fussy about food. I rarely order take out and never eat out so I am responsible for my menu and even I look at the endless leftovers and find myself tossing some waste knowing that it was not necessary. I do often give those to my doorman but again that is not always feasible as I have to buy disposable products in which to do so and provide them with the food, so this too adds costs and still more waste frankly. But the joke is even that bag of chips or other non-essential food may not be costing more but the size proportion is less. In some ways that I appreciate. And I have begun on average to make my own juice but I stop at bread as that is not something I can do at all. So much for those sourdough starters that everyone was talking about. And yes I drink and I take turns on costs for wine and some weeks I do go up a shelf and other times not so much. But again, I live alone, solely care only for myself and that does make it easier.

Expect the basic food group – eggs to go up even higher. The bird flu has led to some rather unorthodox attempts at quelling the disease and with that added to the unemployment roster. Remember this is supposedly a employees market, yeah right you bet. I can trade one shitty job for a less shitty one, still shitty but less so. This great resignation myth is up there next to the one of meritocracy. But even the supposed wage gains at said jobs are being blamed for inflation costs. With that too one can go really? Paul Krugman discusses the issues surrounding this subject in his column in the Times, Inflation, Interest and the Housing Paradox

In that he points out the role of the Fed and how banks respond which in turn lead to what we have now with regards to housing costs: Since about 2014, the cost of shelter, as estimated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has been rising considerably faster than the overall cost of living. I’m not talking about house prices; I’m talking about rental rates for apartments and “owner’s equivalent rent,” the bureau’s estimate of what houses would rent for. (Notes a graph) What’s going on here? The answer is that after the housing bubble and bust of the 2000s, housing construction plunged and never fully recovered.

And with another column he discusses the long term prediction or fear with regards to inflation and notes this:

But inflation, which used to be mainly confined to a few sectors strongly affected by the pandemic, has broadened. So I find myself in reluctant agreement with economists asserting that the U.S. economy is overheated — that overall demand exceeds productive capacity and that the two need to be brought in line.

The good news is that there’s essentially no evidence that inflation has become entrenched — that we’re in the situation we were in circa 1980, when inflation persisted simply because everyone expected it to persist. Every measure I can find shows that people expect high inflation for the next year but much lower inflation over the medium term, indicating that Americans still view low inflation as the norm.

So we go into the next year as elections begin and a tide will turn the Congress I have to ask what is the messaging here. We have never had a consistent nor actual reliable messenger for the last six years and that is not changing. Let’s just look at Covid and the new Covid team of the White House and the former Team. Well Dr. Fauci who has been here for six years, declaring the pandemic over or not, whatever he says that rolls and roils the left and right into a tizzy. I have again said this before and again the man is a fucking bureaucrat not an actual Doctor, he just plays one for the TV. He has never used his medical license or training for anything but research but he knows how to play one effectively. Shame Dr. Birx did not follow his lead.

That said the growth of the economy pushed by record stimulus packages, the rise of wages in the coddled class (the working class did as well but they reduced debt more than purchased cars, houses and stuff) enabled a rather steep growth in our overall GDP, especially in comparison to similar economies. And this again is going up one hill and down another. So one is expecting the concept if not the perfect storm aka plan if the GOP return to the House and Senate as they will do their best to avoid anything but thinking massive tax cuts is the way to avoid said recession. And with that we have seen some downturns as Covid is still here, the protections of costs and other measures, such as eviction relief and Health care costs rising thanks to less stimulus to the ACA, will undoubtedly affect growth. And with that already the GDP has declined. What this means in the long term is hard to know. But let us see what pans out in the next 10 months.

This is not about Covid although the pandemic, now the rising war in the Ukraine are two reasons for why we have major economic issues still being played out, as despite it all, the reality is that Corporate America is doing just fine. The coddled class is still playing at home and the reality is that many are bending to the will of that group, while the working class are doing their best to learn how to organize and collectively bargain in the same ways that their elders did 50 years ago. And with that brought more equality and economic gains than any expensive overpriced degree ever did as the campus class is now seeing a safe space means a better working place. They are doing more than any Politician ever did as laws are always made, broken and replaced. Remember how Gay Rights seemed sacrosanct? Yeah me neither.

So who is doing well? The Corporations are and they are people my friend. The same men and some women who are demanding then retracting or tracking their workers, and in turn firing the cleaning staff while cleaning up their accounts. Money, money and more money.

Revealed: top US corporations raising prices on Americans even as profits surge

A Guardian analysis uncovers how companies enriched themselves and their investors while boasting about jacking up prices

by Tom Perkins The Guardian

As inflation shot to a new peak in March, cost increases exacted a deep toll on the economy, eating into most Americans’ wages and further imperiling the financially vulnerable. But for many of the US’s largest companies and their shareholders it has been a very different story.

One widely accepted narrative holds that companies and consumers are sharing in inflationary pain, but a Guardian analysis of top corporations’ financials and earnings calls reveals most are enjoying profit increases even as they pass on costs to customers, many of whom are struggling to afford gas, food, clothing, housing and other basics.

The analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission filings for 100 US corporations found net profits up by a median of 49%, and in one case by as much as 111,000%. Those increases came as companies saddled customers with higher prices and all but ten executed massive stock buyback programs or bumped dividends to enrich investors.

In earnings calls, executives detailed how even as demand and profits rose post-vaccine, they passed on most or all inflationary costs to customers via price increases, and some took the opportunity to add more on top. Margins – the share of sales converted into profits – also improved for the majority of the companies analyzed by the Guardian.

Economists who reviewed the data say it’s more evidence of a clear reality: Consumers are taking a financial hit as companies and shareholders profit or are largely shielded.

“It’s obvious that corporations are trying to pass on any form of short-term pain they might be feeling … and that’s serving the top, wealthiest class instead of those in need of fair wages or products that are affordable,” said Krista Brown, a policy analyst with the American Economic Liberties Project

Media framing likely influences public perception. News reports of Hershey’s multiple price hikes over the last year read like so many dire reports on inflation’s pervasive toll. The company, which owns popular brands like Reese’s, KitKat and Skinny Pop, has been cast as the “latest victim of ever-increasing inflation”.

But a closer look at the company’s financials suggests a vastly different reality. Hershey’s net profits spiked 62% between the fourth quarters in 2019 and 2021, its operating margin widened, and it recently rewarded shareholders with $200m in stock buybacks

Still, customers will pay even more for candy bars in 2022 as Hershey aims for even higher profits: “Pricing will be an important lever for us this year and is expected to drive most of our growth,” CEO Michele Buck told investors.

Similarly, a Kroger executive told investors in June, “a little bit of inflation is always good for our business”, while Hostess’s CEO in March said rising prices across the economy “helps” it profit.

The pandemic, war, supply chain bottlenecks and pricing decisions made in corporate suites have created a “smokescreen”, said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, which tracks companies’ profits. That obscures questionable price increases, she added, and allows businesses to be portrayed as “victims”.

“That gray, nebulous area is fertile ground for companies right now, and you hear about it in their earnings calls,” Owens said. “Inflation itself is the opportunity.”

Profits or profiteering?

The Guardian’s findings are in line with recent US commerce department data that shows corporate profit margins rose 35% during the last year and are at their highest level since 1950. Inflation, meanwhile, rose to 8.5% year over year in March.

The Guardian’s analysis is the first to take a granular look at a cross-section of companies across a range of industries. It compared the most recent quarter’s profits to the same quarter two years prior, pre-pandemic. Price increases were obtained by checking earnings reports, though those often lacked specifics.

The data is not intended to be definitive, but does show how a wide sample of companies have raised prices even as profits jumped. In earnings call after earnings call, executives made no secret of their strategies.

• As gas prices soared, Chevron’s 240% profit spike was part of “the best two quarters the company has ever seen”, prompting a dividend increase and assurances it would keep production low to maintain high prices.
• Steel Dynamics profits increased 809%. The company was “not materially affected by inflation” as higher prices “exceeded” increased supply chain costs.
• Fertilizer giant Nutrien’s profits shot up by about $1.2bn on “higher selling prices [that] more than offset higher raw material costs and lower sales volume”.
• Nike’s 53% profit increase driven by higher prices was only “partially offset” by supply chain and inflationary cost increases.
• Keurig-Dr Pepper’s “significant pricing actions” and productivity outpaced inflationary costs, leading to an 83% profit jump.

The analysis found commodity companies trading in oil, timber, rubber, meat, wheat, steel and mining recorded the highest profit increases, while restaurants and retailers saw comparatively lower improvements, or losses. Commodity price spikes reverberate down the supply chain, eventually hitting consumers, noted Martin Schmalz, an Oxford University economist.

The Guardian’s data, he added, objectively shows a massive “transfer of wealth” from consumers, who pay higher prices, to shareholders and investment firms that reap the benefits.

The potential consequences are enormous and global. Inflation may already have sealed Democrats’ midterm fate, and in France, Marie Le Pen, a far-right candidate from a Holocaust-denying party, gained on her liberal opponent as she positioned herself as the “pricing power” candidate taking on the “oligarchy” and “elitism”.

But even as profits skyrocket, many have dismissed the idea they play a meaningful role in inflation, including Larry Summers, a former Obama adviser with clout in the Biden White House. He previously called profiteering claims “business bashing” that are “terrible economics”.

A Hershey spokesperson stressed that its growth was driven in part by volume, and it would be re-investing much of its profits to meet growing demand: “These investments are where we are making the biggest use of cash,” he said.

Financial observers have varying takes on whether companies are “profiteering” or “price gouging”, or simply profiting. George Pearkes, an analyst at Bespoke Investment, pointed to Caterpillar, which recorded a 958% profit increase driven by volume growth and price realization between 2019 and 2021’s fourth quarters. Eliminating price increases may have dropped the company’s 2021 quarter four operating profits slightly below the $1.3bn it made in 2020.

“This isn’t price gouging … and it shows pretty concretely that there’s a lot of nuance here,” Pearkes said, adding profiteering is “not the primary driver of inflation, nor the primary driver of corporate profits”. However, he added that it’s reasonable to question whether Caterpillar should have passed on its cost increases.

The company also spent $5bn on buybacks last year, and $1.3bn for a quarter of profits is still high, Brown noted, especially in the context of inflation eating into workers’ wage gains.

“Companies have access to massive capital,” she said. “They could have one or two years that are more painful – not even more painful, just less profitable for their investors, and they’re choosing not to.”

‘It’s a fix’

One industry that neatly illustrates how corporations have used the current imbalance of supply and demand to increase their profits is housing.

In recent months, the white-hot market for newly built houses shut out many Americans as average sale prices shot above $500,000. The popular explanation: inflation, supply chain squeezes and building material costs.

But another less publicized factor contributed. Two of the nation’s largest builders, PulteGroup and Lennar, intentionally kept home starts low and took other steps seemingly designed to maintain high prices by restricting supply.

“​​We could sell another 1,000 homes in the quarter if we wanted to without too much effort. It just doesn’t make sense to do that,” Lennar co-CEO Jon Jaffe told investors in an earnings call. Lennar’s profits are up 78%, while PulteGroup’s jumped 97%. Lennar didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A step up the supply chain, wood producer Boise Cascade saw profits spike more than 1,100%, which it largely attributed to “unprecedented” pricing in 2021. Executives boasted that improved margins were only “offset partially” by inflationary and supply chain costs.

And at Home Depot and Lowe’s, where profits are up 38% and by about $2bn, respectively, volume and pricing drove sales as customers paid four times more for lumber.

Observers note a common thread along the supply chain: consolidation. By some estimates, Home Depot and Lowe’s control about one-third of the home improvement market, and hold even more of consumer lumber. Lennar and PulteGroup control about 11% of the home building market, though that figure is probably much higher in many metro regions, and Boise Cascade controls about one-third of the plywood market, according to a Forest Economic Advisors analysis.

“Those who have market power can raise prices above what’s considered fair market value,” Brown said. “We’re at a point in our market concentrations that we haven’t seen ever before.”

The influence of consolidation is pervasive. A Procter & Gamble executive noted to investors it and Kimberly Clark benefit from controlling 70% of the diaper market. It’s what Owens called a “concentration of necessities”. Reports say customers have “shrugged off” diaper cost increases, but antitrust advocates note very limited alternatives exist for many consumers. After multiple price increases, Procter & Gamble’s profits are up and Kimberly Clark’s are down, though the latter expects to “cover the majority of inflation with pricing” in 2022.

Similarly, Hershey’s 30 companies control at least 46% of the candy market. Prices on some of its products are probably up by double digits while the CPI index shows candy is up 7.6%.

Concentration is particularly pronounced among commodity companies, a problem highlighted in the grain market. CPI data shows bread and cereal prices increased by 30% and 7% between 2019 and 2021’s fourth quarters, while wheat skyrocketed to an all-time high in March as war largely eliminated Ukrainian and Russian crops.

Meanwhile, four large grain producers control about 90% of the market. Among them are Archer Daniels Midland, whose profits jumped 55%, and Bunge, whose profits swung by about $280m. Three companies control 73% of the cereal market.

That level of concentration breeds higher prices, said Alex Turnbull, a commodities analyst.

“When you go from 15 to 10 companies, not much changes,” he said. “When you go from 10 to six, a lot changes. But when you go from six to four – it’s a fix.”

Depending on the material or good, some commodity prices are set by exchanges, which Pearkes noted largely eliminates some companies’ pricing power. But commodity consolidation can open the door to another form of pricing power: boosting prices by keeping supply low.

“Price is set by supply and demand at some metals exchange, but what is the supply? That is what the companies determine, no?” Schmalz asked.

Just as PulteGroup kept housing starts down, oil companies have kept production low while gas topped $7 a gallon in some regions. In earnings calls across the industry, oil executives like Diamondback Energy CEO Travis Stice have promised to keep production flat in the years ahead, “putting returns and, therefore, shareholders first”.

“No one wants to see that shareholder return program put at risk with volume growth,” Stice said.

Some companies are enacting price increases in a less direct manner: by eliminating lower-cost products. The CEO of Kohl’s said in a previous interview the store was shifting its merchandise toward higher-end brands like PVH-owned Tommy Hilfiger, where profits are up 183%, because they’re more profitable for Kohl’s.

Similarly, General Motors profits jumped 49% between the full years in 2019 and 2021 despite selling about a million fewer vehicles. The company said it focused on moving more expensive trucks and SUVs than in previous years, but it also raised prices – a Silverado can now cost over $5,000 more than it did in 2019. That includes two rounds of March price increases just weeks after GM announced record profits and margins.

Such strategies further squeeze lower income consumers, said University of Massachusetts Amherst economist Isabella Weber.

“That’s a general trend that can enhance price increases quite dramatically, especially with cars and groceries,” she said.

‘Sick and tired of being ripped off’

Not everyone is raising prices. Arizona Iced Tea owner Don Vultaggio became a populist hero in April when he declared he’d rather take a hit than push prices above 99 cents: “I don’t want to do what the bread guys and the gas guys and everybody else is doing,” Vultaggio told the Los Angeles Times.

But Arizona is a privately owned company that doesn’t face shareholders’ wrath. When Target and Walmart declined to pass all inflationary costs on to customers ahead of the holiday season, an investor revolt ensued, and their shares temporarily plummeted.

“Shareholders are not interested in seeing anyone be cautious with price increases, and in some cases they’re saying ‘let’s throttle supply, let’s see how far we can take this’,” Owens said.

The surge in pandemic profits has not gone unnoticed. A spate of Senate and House bills aim to rein in excessive profits, while Biden proposals and executive actions target stock buybacks and consolidation. Meanwhile, many consumer advocates and economists argue that enforcing antitrust laws already on the book, or strengthening them, could help reduce companies’ pricing power. Others have argued for the implementation of very targeted price controls on essential items, like bread.

In March, Senator Bernie Sanders began a push to bring back a windfall profit tax last used after the second world war, while Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced similar legislation that focused on oil companies’ profits.

“The American people are sick and tired of the unprecedented corporate greed that exists all over this country. They are sick and tired of being ripped off by corporations making record-breaking profits while working families are forced to pay outrageously high prices for gas, rent, food, and prescription drugs,” said Sanders.

Sanders may well be right, but if “sick and tired” Americans vote against the Biden administration in November, his chances of pushing for change will fall.

Women Who Don’t Work

I am enjoying Mrs. America on HULU right now as it covers the attempt by women’s rights activists to get the ERA passed in the 70s.  Then they encountered a failed politician, Phyllis Schafly, who formed a PAC and using an army of housewives destroyed what may have prevented the #MeToo movement, the lack of equitable pay for workers and established family leave,  sexual and reproductive rights, child care and other issues now coming to an ugly head during the current Pandemonium.

Right now most women are filling the job as provider in the quarantine family home even when there is a partner there to assume some of the roles as cook, cleaner and teacher.  But fuck that, right men?!!!

The one thing the show does demonstrate that Ms. Schlafly (she would hate that moniker) was, was in fact a working woman.  She had domestic help, her husband was financially solvent to enable her to take the time away from the home, allowed her to attend law school and of course run the family business out of the home as she built her business of destroying equality for women.  And again let us remind ourselves that we are our worst enemy when it comes to seeking collaboration, cooperation and bridge building versus burning when it comes to climbing that proverbial ladder to “equality.” It exists across gender, race and yes even political lines.  Once you grab that rung you will do whatever it takes to hold on and kick or stomp on anyone’s hand rather than lend a helping one to bring them up to join you.  That is the American Way!

For a long while I used to believe that do unto others and then I sorta kinda didn’t.  It comes from a Christian Ethos and after living in Nashville I thought that concept spread across the secular and non-secular lines and then I met the people who lived there.  Not one but many over my time there taught me that fuck you and fuck you again if you try to do the right thing when you are not a member of the tribe.  Again that tribe is be with your own kind and that is one fucking small tribe of one then. And so it set me on my current course which has been trying to explain to people that no, we are not in this together and yes we are alone when it comes to managing our own health, our wealth and all the rest during the pandemonium.  I had that discussion yesterday when the word afraid came up and I asked what he was afraid of.  And that was the virus.  Irony his partner had the virus, he contracted in a trip to China and was a nurse and immediately took the right precautions to protect his family and his employees from contracting the virus. The joke is I bet this very same person has it and has now the anti-bodies and had no idea he was a carrier.  But again until you test for both the virus and in turn the antibody you will never know if you are Covid “free.” And that means a whole lot of nothing as we are nowhere near knowing if those tests are 100% accurate in either regard.  But hey it is better than nothing and companies across the globe are working towards finding ways to open their business  and keep both employees and customers safe. Some will never re-open.

But for now the reality is that if you are symptomatic regardless of any symptom even just one, get tested and then wait unit the results to resume work, joining the public and in turn practicing safe not-sex (well that always must be practiced) but all the other protocols established regardless, until a vaccine is created.

As for returning to work well that is not a light switch and viola you are back in the old job you had pre-pandemonium.  Banks, Insurance Agents, Hotels, Schools, pick one, name one, are not going to call you all back in and you are back behind the counter, at your desk, in an office, doing whatever you used to do.  As I fight with Wells over their lack of an open branch in Jersey City, they have had more than ample time to build screens, hire security guard to monitor crowd flow, isolate and set policies in motion to protect both staff and customers. NO you cannot get Covid from paper so now that has been declared we can handle money.    So I suspect branches will close, those employees from tellers to managers to other customer service agents, almost all women,  almost all faces of color will be joining the 30 plus million who will be long term unemployed.

This is my third major recession, the one in the 80s when I graduated college, the one in 2008 and now this.  I have been independent once my family hammered into me the idea of a fall back job and saving money, not owning anything unless I pay cash for it was a lesson well learned. Until the attempted murder of me in 2012 I was fine but the ultimate destruction it took on my health and savings I would have been fine.  That said I owe 10K in loans for my teeth and when Vanderbilt claimed I still owed them a 1,000 I laughed and said I will pay you $10 a month for a 100 months. They agreed and I laughed as that is now over eight years to do so. This is how idiotic this system is with regards to medical debt.  My credit card will expire in three so I look forward to that next contact when it happens.  But my intent is to actually pay it off much sooner as frankly just fucking with Vanderbilt was the only thing that mattered and that again it proved how desperate they are too to resolve medical debt.  This will on their end get worse post Covid.

We have the men issue that led to the charge of Trump, that men after 2008 were hired back into jobs that were paid less and in turn also contributed to the Opioid problems among others and it is laughable as that is the same cohort that uses the mantra, “up by your bootstraps” to prove your worth and then those straps break.  Whoops!  So again rather than look extrinsically to the system that contributed to it and of course demand change, strike, take to the streets, vote and actually demand change they turned to a fuckwit reality TV show host to do what he does best, sow chaos and let other people do the heavy lifting.  How is all that winning working out for you? And yes women you voted for the pussy grabber so how is that pussy?

If we are to change anything we need to change how we see ourselves and more importantly how we see each other.  We have to accept differences in behaviors and learn to accommodate those in ways that will enable us to see past the obvious – gender, race, sexuality and culture.  To say Europeans do it better is perhaps somewhat true but they too suffer from the very thing that makes them European, culture.  That is why you are seeing a resurgence to the right in many counties, such as Austria and England as evident by BREXIT. The idea that there is one Europe is crazy as unless you have been there you don’t realize there are characteristics and qualities that make them well Swiss, German, Italian and French and so on.  It is fabulous, fascinating and complex all at the same time.  But you do see a better sense of identity when the shit hits the fan unlike here. We suck and until I lived in the South I did not get that idea of identity, tribalism and nativism.  The South sucks but whatever again my basis of this is the whole racism tied to religion so take that for what it is worth.  I did meet many kind people and great people but I did not tie that to the South I thought it was despite it not because of it. But we do the same with age, race, gender, sexual identity, political beliefs, cultural ones as well. We love the idea of Chinatown, of a Bodega and Hispanic area to go shopping, to taste and feel the flavors, as long as they stay there.  Good to know and I will never forget that is was a Black Woman in Nashville who asked me where I lived and when I told her South Nashville her response: “With all those brown people?” And mine: “Did they not say that about you once?”  And that was the marker for most of my conversations in Nashville, glad to be gone.

As for coming out of this once again minorities and women will get the shaft  And especially ones over 55, we are thought of as less, not worthy and too close to getting that Social Security and Medicare which is what it really is about. It is not about we are not thinkers, doers or creators it is petty jealousy that we are this close to free shit. And that is what fuels the racial divide that concept of getting free/low cost housing, affirmative action that enables some to get into schools over there less qualified but whiter cohorts, but did we not learn anything from the Varsity Blue scandal? It is about access and availability, money and name recognition.  Again, not knowing the Obama children, but get real they could spell cat with a K and get into an Ivy League school, that is the way it is.  Fly or buy as let’s face George W was not  smart in any sense of the word, so again do you think he would handle this better. Think again.

Without an older more sophisticated workforce we will face a much more significant problem in getting back to business.   I think listening to my younger idiots when they say they are “afraid” that is the tip that they are fucking clueless.  We need to remind ourselves we are on the verge of electing another 70 plus white man, could Warren a woman and his age be worse?  She seems sharper and way more hip without a replacement, and that she lost her brother to Covid is an important marker. That said I also think Kamala Harris would be a brutal AG, and after Barr we need a sharp legal mind to untangle all that he did to establish such Executive Power.  Women, we can regardless of age or color, rule the world.  That is what really frightens you.  Watch Mrs. America and see what could have had a bunch of angry white women who were what? Afraid, and in turn stop women from doing what would have benefitted them all.

Women 55 and older who lose their jobs in the pandemic face greater risk of long-term unemployment

By Michelle Singletary
Columnist the Washington Post
May 22, 2020

The pandemic has pushed millions of people out of their jobs. One demographic that has been especially hard hit is women 55 and older.

Sarah Borenstein left teaching at 55 to start a second career in information technology. And she was doing well. The Denver resident was working from her home as a contractor for an engineering firm.

Then the novel coronavirus started spreading. Borenstein’s employer designated her an essential employee and assured her everything would be fine.

Then it wasn’t.

Her employer let her go. Now Borenstein, 58, is living off unemployment. With her teacher’s pension, she’ll be okay — but the loss of income disrupted her plans for a more secure retirement.

“I can live off my pension, but I won’t have a lot of extras,” she said. “The longer I’m out of work, the harder it will be to get back in the job market.”

The United States lost 20.5 million jobs in April, the highest monthly job loss on record. The unemployment rate for both young and older workers jumped to double digits. For women over 55, the unemployment rate increased to 15.5 percent in April, up from 3.3 percent a month earlier, according to the AARP Public Policy Institute. “The numbers were really devastating,” said Susan Weinstock, AARP’s vice president for financial resilience programming.

There’s a trifecta effect for older unemployed women, Weinstock said. They face age discrimination, are likely to be unemployed longer in downturns and — when they do finally land a job — they often have to take a significant pay cut.

When personal and job characteristics are held constant, jobless women are 18 percent less likely to find new work at age 50 to 61 than at age 25 to 34. At 62 or older, they are 50 percent less likely to be rehired, according to research by the Urban Institute.

With job opportunities and income reduced, the unemployed often tap their retirement funds if they have them — leaving less to live on when they decide to retire or are forced to stop working because of health issues. Under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (Cares) Act, workers younger than 59½ can take coronavirus-related distributions up to $100,000 without incurring the typical 10 percent early-withdrawal penalty.

“If they’re having financial trouble, that’s a great safety net,” Weinstock said. “But if you’re an older worker, you have a lot less time to make that up than you do if you’re a younger worker.”

By the way, Weinstock pointed out, if you’re looking for work, AARP has a Job Board at jobs.aarp.org. Right now, the Small Business Administration is looking to hire loan specialists to process applications for the Paycheck Protection Program, created under the Cares Act to help businesses keep their workers employed during the pandemic.

Elizabeth White knows what it’s like to be 55 and unemployed. During the Great Recession, she lost lucrative consulting contracts that put her “solidly in the six figures.” She thought her experience working for the World Bank and advanced degrees from Johns Hopkins and Harvard universities would help her quickly find new employment.

She was wrong.

And to make matters worse, White had previously depleted her savings trying to run a retail business, which ultimately failed.

Now 66, White has gained tremendous perspective that can help other older workers trying to make ends meet during the pandemic. She wrote about her experience of having the “bottom fall out with no ladder to climb back up.” Her book, “55, Underemployed and Faking Normal,” is this month’s Color of Money book selection.

One of the first actions White recommends is forming a “resilience circle,” which is a small network of people with whom you can discuss honestly the challenges of living on a limited income because of a job loss. She talks about how important it is to downsize quickly. And she cautions that if you were a high earner with an impressive job title, “get off your throne,” meaning you may have to settle for work that you wouldn’t normally take.

“We’re going to have to let go of this notion that our values and worth are based solely on our titles, incomes, and jobs,” she writes. “We’re going to have to let go of our vanity and pride.”

White wrote the book before the pandemic hit, but the advice for older workers is timeless. She’s writing as a comrade in the struggle. It’s not a story of “doom and gloom” but of encouragement for older workers trying to make a living in a new normal.

I am hosting an online discussion about the “55, Underemployed and Faking Normal” at noon Eastern time on June 4 at washingtonpost.com/discussions. My guests will be White and AARP’s Weinstock. They will join me to take your questions about older workers dealing with unemployment during the covid-19 pandemic.

Ignorance Not Blissful

The level of ignorance I encounter here in Nashville surpasses levels of idiocy that I have encountered in my travels in America.  I have met the owner of a cafe in Cleveland who impressed me with his directness and honesty, the gift shop clerk in Louisville who was a Teacher during  the school year and was truly inspiring, the young man from Philadelphia in pursuit of a career with the YMCA, Darrell my driver in Pittsburgh who few could top for his divine conversation and pure positive energy are just a few examples of the amazing people I have met throughout my Summer of Me.  Now true I have encountered some wonderful people here but I keep my distance as there is no purpose other than being disappointed which inevitably I will be if I push my luck.  This was only once again proven positive when the Barista I asked to mind my home while away failed to well do it if at all.  Plants were dry, some dead and the strangeness I found from a disconnected TV, personal items sitting out and no real sense of anyone here on a consistent basis just bothered me.   I had a vibe before I left as she is not bright but how hard could it be?  Well hard apparently.    But I did not find a single plant stolen from the front patio so that was something.

And in reality a lot of this is simply due to wages and education.  Even if the population was educated, the wages and the way the state is structured with regards to right to work, would not enable the employers to pay said wages.  There is no imperative and the Chamber of Commerce has vocally said that as so many people are moving here and employment is at an all time high there is no reason.  And in turn that  places most of the onus of responsibility on our bizarre legislature that has blocked attempts by Nashville to establish a living wage act, housing laws and other ways to circumvent the costs of living in the “It” City.  The fear is that if Nashville gets anymore it no one will live in the outlying areas of the State and in turn decimate whatever local economy exists in between the closing of hospitals in same areas, no broadband access, schools that barely function and a growing opioid problem that fuels the rage and despair of the elected officials who have no clear plan or idea how to fix the issue.  Try enabling people to get to jobs where there are jobs and have a valid transit and infrastructure plan that enables those outlying areas to have at least functional roles in building a workforce.   Just the other day it was found that the University in Knoxville fuels billions in that areas economy which shocked me but then again given the turnover and attention to the school recently I suspect that it is less about education and more about sports.    But the real driver of the State economy – tourism.

When I read the below article I laughed as the average wage here is nowhere near $17/hr let alone $20.  When you say “average” you include all wages in the labor pool and that includes the Medical professionals (aka Doctors) and Lawyers who dominate the higher sector of employment earnings with those who are the bottom end of the spectrum which artificially inflates the average.  If you remove those in the top tier the reality is that wages here run about $11-13 hour.    Few offer benefits and even fewer require education.  And if one was educated the student loans would negate any reason to take said jobs.  When they say they cannot find enough trained workforce I keep wondering what training are they speaking of.  You don’t even need a college degree to be a Substitute Teacher and frankly I wonder when I walk into these dumpsters called schools if the Teachers have them.  It is something I cannot believe when I walk in and even more so when I walk out.   

The influx of supposed migrants into the area is slowing and rents are dropping.  That said we pay the most in living costs as we have the most expensive electric rates in the country.   We have no infrastructure so without a car the transportation costs (supposedly the most expensive city with regards to ride hailing use costs)  are huge here (insurance is unusually high due to the daily traffic accidents/fatalites and crimes regarding car theft)  and there is a sales tax that is out of proportion with wages including food.     I rarely communicate with the property management firm that has let this building fall apart from basic maintenance to required upkeep, and the endless cycle of tenants tell me that this is just another stopping ground to where ever as the dreams and reasons that brought them here don’t keep them here for long. I have finally stopped trying to bond or care with the coffee servers, the bank tellers and others I encounter during the day.  I was shocked when one of the Teachers I pushed in with yesterday actually asked my name and introduced me to the class, the others ignored me and pointed to the kids I was to assist.  It was sad, grim and pathetic.  It was the same the day before as that is the standard of respect modeled for the children.  Nashville is truly vile. Come and earn low wages be treated like shit, I call myself the the human colostomy bag.  They don’t even know what that is here.    If you think a degreed person making 35K annually is a good wage, realize it takes about 75K to live here.  Seattle does as well and yet this is nowhere near as clean, progressive and intellectual so again numbers don’t always tell the truth.  But then again I suspect people in Seattle can do the math better.

10 years after the Great Recession: New opportunities, tepid wages in Nashville
Jamie McGee, Nashville Tennessean Published  Aug. 28, 2018

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series on Nashville, 10 years after the start of the Great Recession.

Laura Sivado graduated with a master’s degree in communication arts and dreamed of working in human resources.

But in 2009, with a tanking economy, she struggled to find work in her chosen field. She became a caregiver, doing chores and caring for seniors, earning $9 an hour. She and her husband delayed their honeymoon and home improvements. She also crotcheted as a side income.

“I imagine where I could be now,” said Sivado, who now lives in South Nashville. “I saw all the jobs dry right up.”

Sivado works today as a hospitality recruiter, a job that better aligns with her education and one that she enjoys. She is paid about $35,000 a year, well above her caregiving wages, but less than she expected to be earning nearly a decade after obtaining a master’s degree.

“I haven’t moved the needle,” Sivado said. “A lot of us who were told go to college, get your degrees, do this, you’ll make good money, (now)we’ll be working through our 70s because we’ve made no money in our 20s and 30s to build our retirement.”

Ten years after the country plummeted into the Great Recession, a lot has changed, particularly in Middle Tennessee.

In September 2008, banking powerhouse Lehman Brothers collapsed in New York, setting off the financial crisis. The Nashville unemployment rate climbed to nearly 10 percent, home foreclosure rates soared, stock markets crumbled and retirement savings dissolved.
Ten years later

Nashville’s diverse economy, with a focus on more recession-resilient sectors such as health care and education, helped it weather the recession better than many other metro areas, including Detroit, Las Vegas and Fresno, Calif., where unemployment ranged from 14 to 18 percent.

Middle Tennessee came out of the recession earlier and today faces a vastly different landscape. Employers in a range of industries are desperate for workers amid a 3 percent unemployment rate, and foreclosures have fallen to 2 percent. Stock markets have continuously hit record numbers, helping retirement savings rebound.

Many of those who suffered during the recession are in better shape in 2018, but the stalled economy has left a mark ontoday’s wages and salaries.

“The adjustment from the Great Recession continues to take place,” University of Tennessee economist Matthew Murray said. “The lack of earnings growth is an example of this.”
Job market devastation

During the downturn, the Nashville area lost 53,000 jobs, nearly 7 percent of its workforce, and Tennessee lost nearly 218,000 jobs, a nearly 8 percent decline. The Tennessee construction sector, professional and business services, and the retail industry each lost tens of thousands of workers. Bellevue Mall shuttered in 2008 and new downtown condos that hit the market as the recession peaked struggled for buyers.

The state’s manufacturing industry, which began shedding jobs in the mid-1990s, accelerated its decline and cut ranks by 74,000, or 20 percent, in two years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. General Motors, a major Spring Hill employer, cut about 1,700 local workers in 2009, as it closed 14 plants nationally. The impact rippled across Spring Hill, with 250 businesses closing that year.

“It was one shoe dropping after the other,” said Jan McKeel, president of South Central Tennessee Workforce Alliance. “You had a lot of heads of households that lost their jobs in that period of time … We saw multiple generations, moms and dads, fathers and sons.”

As construction slowed, related businesses were impacted. Gresham Smith and Partners architecture and engineering firm in Nashville cut training programs, corporate travel, executive perks,such as golf club membership and sport events, and eventually, staff. Profitsflattened to near zero as projects were paused or stopped.

Even when clients saw their own business improve, they were hesitant to move forward with plans, said Al Pramuk, Gresham Smith CEO.

“There were a lot of difficult phone calls from clients that were telling us the challenges they were having,” Pramuk said. “We wanted to do all the things we could before we had to explain to some of our employees that they had to find some other options, even if it were for the next year or so.”

Ralph Schulz, CEO of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, said economic development projects in the pipeline disappeared and recruitment targets abandoned their searches for expansion sites.

“It came out so fast and so hard, it was surprising,” Schulz said.

Terri McCall, a recruiter for home health provider Visiting Angels, recalled how her fiancé, now husband, had come to her office at a former health care company in 2009 to take her to lunch. He helped her pack a box instead.

A year later, her employer would be closed, and McCall would work through a temp agency, facing uncertain hours and $9 to $10 an hour wages, well below her earnings as an executive coordinator.

“It took a while to bounce back,” McCall said.
‘I schedule people for interviews and they don’t show up’

Today, the state boasts more than 162,000 open positions in Tennessee, more than the 115,000 individuals who are unemployed.

Patrick Combs, executive director of Nashville Career Advancement Center, said the strength of the job market has posed a challenge for employers in need of skilled workers, especially in nursing, manufacturing and construction fields.

“There is a scarcity of skilled workforce,” Combs said. “Employers are really feeling the pinch.”

During the recession, when the supply of skilled workers greatly exceeded demand, a candidate with a gap in their work history stood little chance against someone with a more complete resume.Now employers are more willing to overlook those periods of unemployment or to hire someone who has a conviction history, he said.

As a recruiter, McCall observes daily the new challenges that have emerged in a robust economy. Jobs are back, but people are not chasing them. Low wages coupled with higher living expenses are among the factors deterring them, she said. For those with children, child care expenses often can counter the income they would earn in the workforce.

“I schedule people for interviews and they don’t show up,” McCall said. “The cost of living is so overpriced in Nashville. Companies don’t have comparable pay … A lot of people have just given up …There are jobs available. People are just not going after them.”

Combs calls this the discouraged workforce — people who are no longer looking for work because of real or perceived barriers. Some may think employers won’t hire someone with a conviction history or who lacks transportation. Nashville Career Advancement Center reaches out to communities facing higher rates of poverty to connect them to opportunities or to help them overcome the hurdles that limit their participation.

“There are still parts of town where there has been systemic poverty, where the opportunities have never reached them,” Combs said. “They don’t feel they can go looking for it.”

Since the depths of the recession, the Nashville metro area has since hit a new high of 1 million jobs, a 25 percent increase. Retail has recovered and business services and hospitality both significantly exceed pre-recession employment levels.

“By and large, most sectors in the economy have done well,” Murray said. “It has just taken a long time for that health to be fully restored.”
Wage stagnation

Murray describes the lack of wage growth in recent years as one of the “great mysteries” of today’s thriving economy, and said the problem is rooted in entry-level wages.

“When you raise the wage rate for entry-level workers, oftentimes, you get pressure to raise the entire wage structure,” Murray said. “Employers are reluctant to do that.”

During the recession, employers were able to hire people for less money and for fewer hours to avoid covering Affordable Care Act benefit requirements, Combs said.

“All of these things are slowly starting to creep back up,” Combs said.

In the first quarter of 2018, average weekly wages in Davidson County grew 6.2 percent compared to the same period last year, outpacing the national increase of 3.7 percent. The county was 19th in the country for its wage growth during the quarter.

For all of 2017, Nashville average wages grew by three percent and stayed flat in 2016, according to data provided by Metro Nashville officials.

“Wages are usually very slow to change, but they are finally changing to reflect the scarcity of the labor,” said David Penn, Middle Tennessee State University associate professor of economics. “It took a while.”
Laura Sivadoat talks about the foreclosure home with a pool that she and her husband bought during the recession, in Antioch, Tenn., Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018.Buy Photo

Laura Sivadoat talks about the foreclosure home with a pool that she and her husband bought during the recession, in Antioch, Tenn., Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018. (Photo: Lacy Atkins / The Tennessean)

Hospitality staffing recruiter Sivado sees firsthand how the stagnant wages are affecting hotels’ ability to hire and retain workers who are in heavy demand. Hotel rooms in Nashville are going for $500 a night, but workers are not feeling the impact, she said.

“The pay is nowhere matching the growth,” Sivado said. “You want a good housekeeper, someone who stays here and knows what they are doing. If you continue to pay $11 and $12 an hour, they can’t afford to feed their family on that.”
Housing collapse, recovery and boom

In 2008, Davidson County had 4,203 foreclosures, up 178 percent from 2006, according to Tennessee Housing Development Agency data.

“There were a lot of homeowners who were upside down,” said Sher Powers, president of the Greater Nashville Realtors. “Because they were overextended, the house was not worth as much as they owed or they didn’t take good care of the homes. We had a lot of free and easy loans in the past that helped set up this problem. People were borrowing 100, 105 percent, putting no money in the deal. It was easier to walk away and take the credit hit.”

For those unable to make housing payments, a job loss or a medical issue was the biggest reason for missed payments, Powers said.

Nashville fared better than other parts of the country. The U.S. had a 225 percent increase in foreclosures from 2006 to 2008. In Shelby County, there were more than 15,000 foreclosures in 2008, and Memphis ranked 18th in the nation inforeclosures among the nation’s 100 largest metro areas. Nashville ranked 52nd and Knoxville ranked 68th.

Tennessee Housing Development Agency Research analyst Joe Speer said better wages, lower unemployment and higher home priceshave helped improve foreclosure rates.

“Home borrowers and mortgage holders have fewer sudden shocks to their incomes, which would mean fewer triggering events that may lead to a default on their home loan,” Speer said. “The velocity in home sales and the appreciation of home values, that often means a borrower who may be struggling with their loan can simply sell their home before they fall very far into delinquency.”

Tighter lending standards now make loans harder to access for many Tennesseans, he said, which has yielded fewer foreclosures. Additionally, many homeowners have refinanced their mortgages as interest rates dropped.

Nashville housing prices have increased twice as fast as wages in the second quarter of 2018, compared to the same quarter in the previous year, according to California-based ATTOM Data Solutions. Home prices climbed 7 percent as wages gained just 3 percent. Since 2012, wages grew 10 percent while home prices shot up 89 percent.

“The very rapid population growth and the stellar job growth that has taken place in the Middle Tennessee region has likely created some real serious housing problems, especially for middle and lower income households,” Murray said. “That is the pattern we are seeing in urban areas all around the country.”

Job losses (by state/city)

Tennessee: 217,000 jobs, or 7.7 percent

Nashville: 53,000 jobs, or 6.6 percent

Memphis: 53,000 or 8.2 percent

Knoxville: 21,600 or 5.7 percent

Unemployment highs during the recession

Nashville: June 2009 at 9.6 percent

Tennessee: June 2009 at 10.9 percent

U.S.: October 2009 at 10 percent

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Unemployment in July 2018

Davidson County: 3 percent

Tennessee: 3.5 percent

U.S.: 3.9 percent

Source: Tennessee Department of Labor & Workforce Development
Tennessee average hourly wages

2008: $17.57

2017: $20.94

My Bad So Sad

I did laugh when Pharma Bro, Martin Shkreli, was sentenced to seven years in prison for – FRAUD. Not, however, for raising the prices of a when he increased by 5,000 percent the price of Daraprim, a previously cheap drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that can be fatal to people with the AIDS virus or other immune system disorders.  A drug needed to save lives and that act in turn contributing to the untenable and consistent rise of prices of pharamacetical drugs. No, his punishment is for defrauding investors whom he largely restored while playing checkers with other peoples money to buy a Wu-Tang album or whatever.  Piss rich people off that will get you in jail sir! Just ask Bernie Madoff.

The Theranos Bitch looks as if she too will be walking into a courtroom soon, I just hope she likes orange. See women can break the glass ceiling. 

This was surprising as again had Pharma Bro turned out differently I suspect we would never see the Marni of the Valley Dolls again.  (You are own your own to figure those references out) but what it may also mean is the Unicorns are coming home to roost or whatever unicorns do.

The bullshit surrounding Silicon Valley of late particularly with the backlash against tech companies as evidenced by SXSW rejection of them after years of courting them is the first sign. The fall back of companies hitting Wall Street up to go public, as Dropbox found out and dropped more than boxes, and the sudden interest in the heartland by the Valley Bros makes one wonder if we are hitting up for another 2001.  Remember that? It was the dot com bomb, the one before the real estate collapse of 2008.

 Shit is hitting the fan and just not in the White House. Literally the Cabinet members seem to think the Federal Reserve is their personal bank in which to raid for trips, furniture and whatever floats their boat – such as a private telephone booth.  Next up hookers and blow!

This does go against the current economic reports but the confusion about wages and health care in the working class as again evidenced by West Virginia Teachers shows more are coming.   And this bankruptcy of ToyRUs is another bad sign with that proverbial fan working overtime with the tariffs and possible trade wars and of course Trump’s insanity that has led anyone with a functioning mind to ask what the fuck is going on here?  The reality is that whatever Trump did it made the poor finally want to stand up to the rich and ask questions that they refuse to answer.   Funny how that worked out.   And let’s hope for more.

It is like a perpetual wrong number where you call them and apologize to them for disturbing them – my bad so sad. Shit happens but it was not your fault. But then the rich make you believe it is.  Ah that is their true gift.  My bad. So sad.

Theranos chief executive Elizabeth Holmes charged with massive fraud
by Carolyn Y. Johnson The Washington Post March 14  2018

Elizabeth Holmes, founder and chief executive of the blood-testing company Theranos, has been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with an “elaborate, years-long fraud” in which she and former company president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani allegedly “deceived investors into believing that its key product — a portable blood analyzer — could conduct comprehensive blood tests from finger drops of blood,” the SEC said.

Holmes agreed to a $500,000 penalty and a 10-year ban on serving as an officer or director of a public company to settle the charges, but she did not admit or deny the allegations.

Jeffrey Coopersmith, a lawyer withDavis Wright Tremaine, said in a statement that Balwani “accurately represented Theranos to investors to the best of his ability.”

Holmes is relinquishing shares and ceding her voting control of Theranos, which was on the verge of bankruptcy late last year. She will not profit from her remaining ownership stake until money is recouped by other investors and shareholders.

In a statement, Theranos’s independent board of directors said the company is “pleased to be bringing this matter to a close and looks forward to advancing its technology.”

A lawyer for Holmes declined to comment.

Theranos, a blood-testing start-up that promised to revolutionize consumers’ access to their medical information, was a Silicon Valley darling once valued at $9 billion.

Holmes had the perfect backstory: a college dropout turned chief executive who had assembled a company board filled with powerful ex-government and military leaders and wanted to change the world. Her personal story about a fear of needles driving her to develop a better solution was heavily featured in the media, even as some medical experts puzzled over what was so novel about her technology and asked for evidence that showed how it worked and why.

The company fell from grace in a snarl of regulatory problems and the revelation that its proprietary technology was not being used in its blood tests, first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The SEC alleges that Holmes, Balwani and Theranos raised more than $700 million from investors by misrepresenting the capabilities of the proprietary blood-testing technology that was at the core of its business — as well as by making misleading or exaggerated statements about the company’s financial status and relationships with commercial partners and the Department of Defense.

Theranos’s miniLab blood analyzer “was not commercially ready” in 2010 when Holmes and Balwani decided to try to sell their services to consumers through partnerships with pharmacy and grocery chains, the complaint says. The commercial partners are not named by the SEC, but Theranos opened wellness centers in Walgreens drugstores in Arizona and California. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Safeway spent $350 million to build wellness clinics in its stores. Both agreements have since been terminated.

When the technology was due to be launched in the first drugstores in September 2013, it was not ready, according to the complaint. Instead, Holmes and Balwani allegedly asked company engineers to modify technology already commercially available to analyze samples — but did not tell their commercial partners. Holmes and Theranos created elaborate technology demonstrations in which they showcased their proprietary analyzers but actually processed the samples on machines made by other vendors. For example, Holmes allegedly led executives from the pharmacy company on a tour including a room full of miniLab analyzers, leaving the impression that samples could be clinically analyzed there, though the analyzers were not able to be used for testing

The complaint also alleges that Holmes and Balwani reassured the grocery chain that their proprietary technology could perform 90 percent of the most commonly used blood tests, when the proprietary technology was capable of only a dozen.

Holmes met with investors, explaining her fear of needles and her vision for fast, cheap blood testing. Potential investors would receive a finger stick blood test and then see the sample inserted into Theranos’s device or taken away to be analyzed, leading them to believe samples were being analyzed on the technology the company had invented.

Holmes allegedly told investors the company did not need approval from the Food and Drug Administration. But in late 2013 and 2014, the FDA told Theranos and Holmes that the company needed FDA approval or clearance of its tests.

Theranos also projected that the company would generate more than $100 million in revenue in 2014; in fact, the company recorded $100,000, according to the SEC.

The SEC also alleges that Holmes claimed to investors that Theranos technology was being used by the Defense Department on the battlefield in Afghanistan and on medevac helicopters. Those statements “were important to potential investors because these relationships lent legitimacy to Theranos’s business and its proprietary analyzer,” the SEC alleges.

That technology was never deployed on the battlefield by the Defense Department, even though Marine Gen. Jim Mattis, who then led the U.S. Central Command, personally pushed for it. Regulatory officials in the military had flagged problems with Theranos’s approach. Mattis later joined Theranos’s board; he resigned to become defense secretary.

“The Theranos story is an important lesson for Silicon Valley,” Jina Choi, director of the SEC’s San Francisco regional office, said in a statement. “Innovators who seek to revolutionize and disrupt an industry must tell investors the truth about what their technology can do today, not just what they hope it might do someday.”

The New Normal

This is the new economy. The middle class can now be called the working class and we can eliminate that concept as it is slowly eradicating like our shores to global warming. Another fact that seems to be in permanent denial as we do nothing about that either.

The reality is wages and incomes are stagnating unless you are a member of the privileged class of the 10%. Now within that group they do have an upper, middle and lower income strata with the upper 1% taking home the largest percentage of income leaving the other 9% to assume the mantel of what was once the “middle class.”

That issue is subject of the new documentary with Robert Reich called “Inequality for All”. Mr. Reich was on Bill Moyers & Company this weekend discussing the film and the concerns that we are now relying on the robber barons and those they have entrenched in Congress to fix a problem that to the robber barons is not a problem. So in other words, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Add to the point that it is almost a derogatory term to be considered middle class but those that do self identify as such are simply calling a duck a goose and a duck by any other name is still a duck. An interesting article here discusses the quandary we have when it comes to quacking whoops I mean investing and planning for the future.

The Quality of Jobs: The New Normal and the Old Normal

By LAURA D’ANDREA TYSON
September 20, 2013, 12:01 am 32 Comments

Since the Great Recession of 2008-9, the labor market has recovered at an agonizingly slow pace. Despite 42 consecutive months of gains in private-sector employment, the unemployment rate is still at 7.3 percent; in December 2007 it was only 4.6 percent. The current unemployment rate is higher now than in 2007 across all age, education, occupation, gender and ethnic groups.

That’s despite the fact that about four million workers have left the labor force, driving the labor force participation rate to a historic low, at least a percentage point below its long-run (downward) trend, according to the Council of Economic Advisers.

Both hiring and quit rates remain significantly below their pre-recession peaks. Although the share of the long-term unemployed has fallen from its peak of 45 percent in 2011 to 38 percent today, it is still far above its 2001-7 average. And about eight million people are working part-time for “economic reasons,” a euphemism for those who would like a full-time position but cannot find one.

The weakness of the labor market is manifest not only in the number of jobs created and the number of unemployed but also in the quality of jobs. Here the news is also bleak.
During the recession, employment declined across the board, but 60 percent of the net job losses occurred in middle-income occupations with median hourly wages of $13.84 to $21.13. In contrast, these occupations have accounted for less than a quarter of the net job gains in the recovery, while low-wage occupations with median hourly wages of $7.69 to $13.83 have accounted for more than half of these gains. Over the last year, more than 40 percent of job growth has been in low-paying sectors including retail, leisure/hospitality (hotels and restaurants) and temporary help agencies. Many of these jobs are not only low-wage but also part-time for economic reasons.

According to a recent analysis at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, low-wage jobs usually account for 40 to 50 percent of job gains during recoveries. Based on history, what’s distinctive about this recovery is its sluggish pace, not the composition of its jobs. The economy’s growth rate has been less than half the rate of previous recoveries and the employment losses in the Great Recession were more than twice as large as those in previous recessions. The employment hole is much deeper, and it is taking much longer to get out of it.

Prolonged labor market slack has meant falling real wages for most workers. According to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, between 2007 and 2012 average real hourly wages for all private-sector workers grew by a paltry 1.2 percent. But this average obscures differences among workers at different skill and pay levels: real hourly wages fell for 70 percent of the wage distribution, with larger losses for those holding lower-wage jobs. During the year ended in mid-2013, real wages finally began to increase a bit for workers between the 50th and 70th percentile but continued to fall for those below.

In contrast, real wages have increased, albeit at a much slower clip than before the recession, for those in the top 30 percent of the wage distribution since 2011 and are up over the entire 2007-12 period.

Again, these patterns are not surprising. High unemployment harms wage growth across the wage distribution with the negative effect getting larger as one moves down the distribution. What is distinctive during this recovery relative to earlier ones is the growing disparity in wages across sectors, a trend that was apparent long before the Great Recession.

Between 2000 and 2007 real hourly wages increased 2.6 percent for the median worker, 1 percent for workers in the 20th percentile of the wage distribution and 4.6 percent for those in the 80th percentile. Over the entire 2000-12 period, real hourly wages were flat or declining for the bottom 60 percent of the wage distribution – and that’s despite productivity growth of nearly 25 percent during the same period.

According to economic logic, wage growth should reflect productivity growth. This was the case until the late 1970s. Since then, however, wage growth has fallen far short of productivity growth, and that’s true for workers regardless of education, occupation, gender or race.

The wage distribution has become considerably more unequal over the last 30 years, with top earners capturing a large share of overall productivity gains. The real median earnings of full-time workers aged 25-64 have stagnated after peaking in the late 1970s. There are many interrelated causes of wage stagnation and increasing wage inequality, including a drop in the real value of the minimum wage, disappearing unions and changing norms of fairness in pay. But technological change and the globalization it has enabled have played major roles, and these driving forces have probably strengthened during the recovery.

The Hamilton Project, from the Current Population Survey

Sample includes all full-time workers ages 25-64. Full-time workers are defined as those working 40 or more weeks. Earnings are adjusted for inflation using the CPI-U-RS.Jobs that are routine, that do not involve manual tasks and that do not need to be done near the customer are being replaced by computers and automation or are being outsourced to low-cost workers in other countries. Many of these jobs are middle-income and middle-skill jobs.

At the same time, technology is increasing the demand for workers who perform nonroutine tasks that complement automated processes or perform nonroutine, manual tasks that cannot be automated. Such tasks lie at opposite ends of the skill and wage distribution – from retail sales clerks and restaurant workers at the bottom to software programmers and engineers at the top.

The result is “polarization” of employment with job growth concentrated at the high and low ends of the wage and skill distribution and the disappearance of jobs in the middle.

These trends are apparent in most developed countries but are most pronounced in the United States. Recent data indicate that polarization has continued through the recovery: job growth has been stronger at the top and bottom ends of the wage distribution than in the middle.

The bifurcation of job opportunities has been a major contributor to growing wage inequality and that in turn has been a major contributor to the historic rise in income inequality that began in the 1970s. The deep recession and weak recovery have exacerbated these trends.

According to the recent Census report, the real income of the top 5 percent of households has recovered from recession losses and was about the same in 2012 as it was in 2007. In contrast, the incomes of the bottom 80 percent of families have not recovered to pre-recession levels. Median real household income in 2012 was still below its pre-recession level and about 9 percent below its all-time high in 1999.

According to another study, the top 1 percent of households captured 65 percent of real family income gains (including realized capital gains) between 2002 and 2007 and 95 percent of the gains between 2009 and 2012. In 2012, the top decile claimed more than 50 percent of income, the highest share ever.

The trends of disappearing middle-income jobs, stagnating wages and growing income inequality predated the Great Recession and are likely to persist even after the labor market has fully recovered, as measured by the quantity of jobs and the unemployment rate.

Without significant institutional and policy changes, supported by changes in social norms about wage inequality, the “new normal labor market” could feel a lot like the “old normal labor market” in terms of job quality for a large number of American workers.

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Wake Up

Yesterday marked the anniversary of perhaps the most quoted and admired speech of my lifetime and for I suspect others now and hopefully in the future, I Have A Dream, by Martin Luther King spoken during the March on Washington in 1963.

At the time Mr. King was described as clergyman and activist and he was all of 34 years old having won the Nobel Peace Prize only 3 year earlier at age 31.  He was active in the Civil Rights movement and formed the SLCC when he was all of 27.  He died at age 39.

I bring up his age as frankly I don’t know ONE person in that age range of 27-34 capable of leading a march across the street let alone a movement.  This is the generation who equate intelligence to the parameters of a 3×5 card.  It is called a “smart” phone it doesn’t make you smart.

That was a different time and not a good one by any stretch of the imagination. But King had a dream and he had intelligence. He went to College at a very young age when men of his color were not as lucky.  He was a man of faith and we eschew God and the idea of faith as antiquated and a reflection of “un-education.”  Well he spoke volumes and yet without volume.

I showed 6th graders this year some of the movie about Gandhi to introduce to them the influence and role model of whom MLK emulated.  See in some situations learning and emulating others can be a good thing.   Who are the role models today?  Sports stars? Entertainers?  We have no ordinary people doing extra-ordinary things that lead others, inspire them and give them hope to be better, to do better, to help others. A rising tide lifts ALL boats.  This generation has little concept of the world ALL it is all MY ME WHY.

I spoke to a young man at a coffee shop, and he is of course an Idiot.  I label him that because he is. He has no intellectual fortitude of any kind.  And what is tragic is that I doubt he realizes it as most in his generation do not.  He and I were talking about some infrastructure issues in the area and he goes “well I don’t like it because I bike and it makes it impossible for me to bike anywhere.”  Note the personal pronouns in that sentence.  He is clearly an Opthamologist as he is an “I” specialist.  He had no knowledge of why or where or what was being built in the name of mass transportation but he just knew it affected him.  “I” hear that a lot.  How does it affect “me?”

When you see and hear yesterday’s speeches and the profound affect that movement had on others and where it was heading you realize that it was greater than one man, one issue and one nation.  Democracy is a big word and it has a clear meaning and we are living within a decreasing one each day.

This year that marked the anniversary of that dream also marks the year the Supreme Court began to decimate the core of that speech, the Voting Rights Act, and in turn Affirmative Action, Class Action, Age Discrimination and “I” am sure next up Women’s reproductive rights, an already burgeoning movement across the Nation.  We have challenges to equal pay and today marks the move towards fast food employees striking for living wages.  MLK would be a proud supporter of that as that is what he was fighting for a few years later when he was struck down in Memphis.

That is the legacy of MLK, the voice of everyman, the idea that a dream is a reality and that if you are willing to wake up and fight for your dream you don’t need a raised voice or arms, you need feet and the ability to march and speak up.

Our young would Tweet, Facebook and You Tube their thoughts, as limited as they are. And that does not make a movement it only echos it.  Boots on the ground and making it real and visible.  Social media only takes it so far.  So when I read how would MLK use them today, as tools of communication but of change no.  Boots on the ground, seeing, and hearing the personal narratives makes it real.  The internet is not real and neither are dreams unless you actually implement them.

Then yesterday I read this article about the decade long quest for equal pay and opportunity at Merrill Lynch, once led by a black man.  Of course he was equally as inept and corrupt as his white equivalent in the same positions, so equality was sort of kind of made.  It took time and the story about this rough sailing ship to lift all boats is here. 

And then below I read the article and the long term affects of this recession/depression/whatever. Note that it affects largely women who are increasingly the sole head of households and that many are no longer even members of family, as having such is becoming increasingly cost prohibitive.

I don’t believe we have any idea on how to handle the growing number of singles who live alone without a support network.  I learned that the hard way and it is why I am big on the idea of co-housing.  However this is not the City as it is increasingly young and in turn attracting the carpet baggers that the tech sector attracts, the anti social, highly “libertarian”, angry young men and the oddly unhappy women that follow them. It makes that bubble a good idea as it might keep them in and I won’t encounter them much.  Don’t tap on the glass it makes the animals inside angry.

New Census Numbers Show Recession’s Effect on Families

By SAM ROBERTS
Published: August 27, 2013

 “The analysis found a decline in homeownership, more mothers entering the work force and an increasing dependence on food stamps, among other things.” The portion of American households made up of married couples with children under 18 fell to 20 percent from 40 percent from 1970 to 2012, the Census Bureau said Tuesday as it detailed other fundamental changes in family life.

The share of people living alone, meanwhile, rose 10 percentage points, to 27 percent.

The analysis also found that the recession profoundly affected American families from 2005 to 2011, resulting in a 15 percent decline in homeownership among households with children and a 33 percent increase in households where at least one parent was unemployed.

The recession also saw more mothers enter the work force and an increasing dependence on food stamps.

The number of households with an unemployed parent soared by 148 percent in Nevada and by more than 50 percent in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, New Jersey and North Carolina in those years.
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“During the recession, economic well-being worsened for families with children,” said Jamie Lewis, a demographer in the bureau’s Fertility and Family Statistics Branch who helped write the analysis. “Even after the recession officially ended in 2009, these measures remained worse than before it began.”

The severity of the decline often depended on whether the parents were married. Nine percent of married families were living below the poverty line and receiving food stamps. The proportion among single-mother households was four times greater.

In another shift that might be recession related, a higher percentage of adults ages 25 to 34 lived in their parents’ home in 2012 than in the early 2000s. The share among men increased to 16 percent from 13 percent; among women, it rose to 10 percent from 8 percent.

Among people 18 to 24, women were more likely to be living with a spouse or an unmarried partner. Eleven percent of women and 6 percent of men in that age group were married; another 12 percent of women and 8 percent of men were cohabiting.

Of the nation’s 115 million households, 56 million were married couples and 32 million were people living alone (12 million of whom were 65 or older). Married couples made up 48.6 percent of households, compared with barely short of 50 percent as recently as 2010.

The analysis, drawn from the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey, found the proportion of women ages 65 to 74 living alone had halved, though only 45 percent of women in that age group lived with their spouse, compared with 72 percent of men.

Divorce rates may have been accountable for a sharp rise in the share of men ages 15 to 64 living alone, to 34 percent, from 23 percent in 1970.

The census found stark differences in family structure by race and ethnicity. Married couples made up 81 percent of Asian, 80 percent of non-Hispanic white, 62 percent of Hispanic and 44 percent of black family groups.

Twenty-eight percent of children over all live with one parent — 55 percent of black children, 31 percent of Hispanic, 21 percent of white and 13 percent of Asian. Still, 64 percent of all 74 million children lived with married parents — a decline from 69 percent just a decade ago. <

“Over the last half-century, the trend in the U.S. has been toward smaller households, fewer family and married-couple households with children, and more people living alone,” said Jonathan Vespa, another co-author of the report. “Many of these trends reflect a rising age at first marriage and older adults who can live in their own home for longer.”

“A family postponed is not necessarily a family forgone,” he said.

Sixty-six percent of households in 2012 were family households — two or more people related by birth, marriage or adoption — compared with 81 percent in 1970. Among cohabiting couples with children, 51 percent lived only with the biological children of both partners.

The census survey found 605,000 same-sex couple households, married and unmarried, of whom 321,000 were female and 284,000 were male. Same-sex couples were more likely than opposite-sex married couples to both be college graduates (31 percent) and more likely to be of different races (12 percent).

Gone Baby Gone

The refrain of the Small Business man is gone away. It has been replaced with Job Creator, a sort of creepy euphemism I assume for the small business man but in reality it refers to Corporations, who are people too my friend.

In reality the whole idea of trickle down actually does work in this case. The larger Corporations often lead to smaller businesses from whom they rely on for a myriad of responsibilities.  Think of all the industries and in turn jobs created and generated from the Auto industry.  It is very much a trickle down economy in that respect.  Suppliers, Manufacturers, and assorted other related industries often crop up in response to the larger community needs as the bigger Corporation passes that buck. That includes Restaurant tabs, the housing market and even Philanthropy that results.  When Big Daddy does good so does the rest of the household, right Maggie? Tennessee Williams knew that much.

But the recovery that never was for Main Street has finally reared its truth.  The article below discusses the long term problems faced by those uncertain of what is happening to their communities, to their business and to their own personal wealth not dictated by a generous Board of Directors.

This roof is hot and the Cat needs to jump. But when you have nowhere to jump and you only have so many lives left you wonder.

Small Businesses Still Struggle, and That’s Impeding a Recovery

By CATHERINE RAMPELL
Published: February 13, 2013

In the recovery so far, small businesses have largely been left behind. Initially, loans were hard to come by and consumers weren’t shopping. Now, small-business owners say, Washington is throwing up additional roadblocks.

In survey after survey, owners of small businesses report unbridled pessimism about the economy. The small-business optimism index from the National Federation of Independent Business — a major industry group for small businesses that surveys a sample of its members each month — is stuck at recessionary levels. In January’s report, released this week, expectations for business conditions six months from now were at their fourth-lowest reading in nearly 40 years.

Comparable measures for large companies have exceeded their prerecession levels. That is partly because big companies have a larger global footprint, so they are benefiting from strong growth in places like China and India. Small businesses are more closely tied to the leaden domestic economy, said Paul Ballew, chief analytic and data officer at Dun & Bradstreet, so weak growth at home is weighing more heavily on them.

That gulf in optimism between small and large companies seems to widen, though, during occasions of greater policy uncertainty and Washington gridlock — including the present. And while small businesses always grumble about taxes and regulation, they are especially likely to do so now. Asked by the National Federation of Independent Business about their “single most important problem,” small-business owners are now as likely to name taxes or government requirements as they are to name sales, which had reigned supreme from September 2008 until mid-2012.

“Politicians are uniformly quick to offer paeans to small businesses, but their actions have directly held back the sector, to the huge detriment of the economy,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomic Advisors. “The timing of this latest slump is particularly frustrating because the key precondition for a real small-business recovery — the normalization of bank lending to commercial and industrial companies — is within reach.”

It is unclear why policy and economic uncertainty would be taking a greater toll on small versus large businesses.

Smaller companies might have be more alarmed by headlines about the debt ceiling and fiscal tightening because they don’t have armies of in-house analysts to advise them about relative risks, said Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford who maintains an index on policy uncertainty.

Smaller businesses are also more fixated on domestic uncertainty because they are less diversified than big firms — both geographically and in terms of product lines — and so have smaller margins for error. The last several years have offered multiple false starts in the domestic economy (remember “Recovery Summer” in 2010?), and small businesses that acted on any sense of optimism often found themselves badly burned.

Ralph Jensen, president of Pro Data IV, a nine-person accounting and bookkeeping firm in Green Bay, Wis., has watched and learned. He would like to open another office in Appleton, about 30 miles south, and hire a new employee. But he is concerned about how another blowup in Washington, or at the very least lingering uncertainty about tax increases and spending cuts, might affect his clients’ expansion plans.

Unlike a big company that can take a tax write-off for investing in space or equipment it ends up not needing, “I just don’t have much wiggle room if I fail,” he said.

Before he would feel comfortable expanding, he said, “I’d have to see my business is growing consistently for a long time, and I would have to have really, really strong faith in the fact that people were going to be opening more businesses around here that would be looking for services like mine.”

No matter what fiscal showdown Washington might have in the coming weeks, recent Congressional decisions have already had concrete effects on the economic security of small businesses.

Many business owners report continued confusion about what their health care liabilities will be in 2014, for example, when some employers will be required to offer health insurance and other changes to health benefits kick in.

Owners who sell directly to consumers say they are also concerned about the effects that Congress’s recent tax increases, like the end of the payroll tax holiday, will have on their bottom line.

“You know I’m in kind of a unique situation in that I don’t sell anything that anybody needs, the way you need groceries or some other things,” said Jason Starkey, the owner of Starkey Products, in Orange City, Fla., which sells lighting products and other accessories that are installed in new cars. “I know I’ve noticed the tax hike that just occurred, so people making $50,000 to $60,000, the people who buy our products, must be noticing it, too.”

The latest commercial and industrial lending numbers from the Federal Reserve suggest that the credit market for small businesses is healing. Rising housing values, too, are good for small-business borrowers, who often take out personal loans to finance their businesses.

But many small businesses are still struggling to have their credit needs met.

“The banks are not lending. They claim they are, but they’re not,” said Summit Kumar, president of Summit Telecom, a telecommunications company in Hicksville, N.Y. “I got a line of credit from a bank five years ago and I paid it back. Now the same bank says I’m ‘high-risk business’ and turns me away.” He acknowledges that his business has taken a hit in recent years and that he has had to lay off employees, but he says that his inability to get credit is part of the problem. He says he has had to resort to cash advance companies that expect him to pay back loans at exorbitant interest rates. One alternative lender said it would give him $50,000 if he paid it back with $75,000 six months later.

The struggles of small businesses ripple through the rest of the economy. They are reluctant to invest in expensive capital equipment, for one.

Mr. Starkey said that eight or nine years ago he could have justified investing in a $25,000 piece of equipment that would help him make a particular piece for a Ford Mustang, since he knew he would be able to earn back his investment in six months. But today, he doesn’t know if he will be able to get a return in six months or two years, and “having that kind of money tied up in one item is just too great a risk.”

Metrics of small-business hiring and hiring intentions are also very low, according to the National Federation of Independent Business and the Labor Department. That might partly explain why so many middle-age women have dropped out of the labor force in recent years, said Mr. Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomic Advisers, since women are more likely to be employed at smaller service sector companies than, say, manufacturers.

“Until the small-business sector starts to feel better,” he said, “the rest of the economy isn’t going to feel much better either.”