Rolling US Economy Into The Shitbin Thread

“OIL BALL”

H/T @AdsoOfBelk @_Jason_Dean_ @pacpaxpam https://t.co/T9KrTBLSVO pic.twitter.com/caKbbvhWdX

— MOAR Drilling (@MOAR_Drilling) March 10, 2022

Calling this now: Omicron breaking through in China will be a double whammy for global trade and therefore inflation.

China just declared a 7-day lockdown in Shenzhen -- home of one of the world's largest ports.https://t.co/5KhOESgbbi

— Christopher Mims 🤌 (@mims) March 13, 2022

hell yeah

Wayne Pankratz of @Applebees says that higher gas prices are great for business because most employees live check to check and hopefully they can start lowering wages. pic.twitter.com/BiRfeSmsYX

— Rob Gill 🇨🇦❤️🇺🇦 (@vote4robgill) March 23, 2022

weird, PUA ended almost 7 months ago

I mean, isn’t that just how labor markets work in capitalism? I’d be surprised if 90-95% of service industry/low wage employers aren’t having the exact same conversation behind closed doors.

it's the quiet part out loud, of course. bless the rat who leaked the email

it's an interesting statement but i'm skeptical that some podunk applebees exec has the correct model of the labour market. the rule of thumb that [anything happens] -> bad for workers under capitalism is a good approximation 99% of the time, but it's still worth thinking through the mechanism. and we're in weird times; the bottom 20% low wage workers have had high sustained real wage growth for the last 2 years, the first time that's happened in decades. no one knows exactly why, but something in this economy is working out to the advantage of low-wage workers

Updated figure on annualized nominal wage growth and CPI inflation (through Feb 2022), adjusting for composition.

Workers in the bottom 40% saw pay growth exceed inflation over past 24 months; share fell to 20% for past 12 or 6 months when inflation was higher.
1/ https://t.co/CzQoRCP14H pic.twitter.com/cp2sEDcMvB

— Arindrajit Dube (@arindube) March 25, 2022

usually inflation is associated with a tight labor market. the fed isn't planning on raising rates high enough to cut into inflation any time soon (they're hiking but will still be below "neutral" rates for another year or two). and people have been entering the labour force in record numbers which shows no sign of slowing

this logic can break down under cost-push inflation (rather than demand driven inflation from loose fiscal/monetary policy). i.e., if the rise in gas prices results in 1970s style stagflation where both unemployment and inflation are high. maybe unemployment will start to increase, but i'm not so sure. the shift back to consumption of services (after the historic shift away from services to goods during the pandemic) is a large secular force pushing the demand for labor up. and despite what pankratz says, the end of PUA/PEUC didn't seem to make much difference in labor supply

if gas prices cut into disposable incomes, that would also mean less demand for applebee's. and as high gas prices raise costs, that would also cut into applebees' profits. whether these are offset by lower labor costs is unclear.

also, everything depends on the fed. if the fed is accomodative, high prices can get pumped back into wages (wage-price spiral). if the fed goes full volcker and causes a recession, both prices and wages will fall and unemployment will increase

what's interesting to me in the statement is the part about mom and pops. his mechanism goes (1) rising oil prices will raise costs for applebees' small competitors, (2) they'll either cut hours, raise prices, or go out of business, (3) those that cut hours or go under will lower competition applebees faces.

this is kinda nerdy, but a key implicit assumption he's making is that mom and pops will have a harder time than big businesses passing the increase in costs onto prices. he's saying that the demand faced by small businesses is more elastic. i'm not sure if that's true

i appreciate the nerdy. and def wasn’t offering him up as an exemplar of the globalist cabal who are secretly pulling the strings and making the frogs gay

just enjoying a glimpse into the unpolished mind grapes of your average shitbird who makes everyone’s life in his orbit appreciably worse, and can only be rewarded for it

totally agree

ironically, after decades of strict adherence to chicago-style "perfectly competitive" models of the labor market where none of this stuff can matter, labor economists are just now catching up to the level of applebees' execs understandings of the labor market

it sounds insane (and is) but it's only in the last 5-10 years that the statement "employers set their own wages" has reached consensus. the previous consensus was that competition was so fierce, employers had no choice but to pay the going market wage

if gas prices cut into disposable incomes, that would also mean less demand for applebee's. and as high gas prices raise costs, that would also cut into applebees' profits. whether these are offset by lower labor costs is unclear.

Well sure, but I don't think he's saying what will offset what, he's just saying it's going to get easier to hire people if they are more strapped for cash, which is not only very likely true but the principle on which low wage labor entirely depends. Also, people in the class who do low wage jobs enjoyed unprecedented government benefits in the last two years that have since either ended or are coming to an end, so looking at the recent labor market may not give you a picture of what's to come.

I think it's good whenever people learn that this is how it works, but I wish people would understand that it's a system and not "some asshole at Applebees" (technically, not even at Applebees, just a large Applebees franchise owner) who makes it so

Also, people in the class who do low wage jobs enjoyed unprecedented government benefits in the last two years that have since either ended or are coming to an end, so looking at the recent labor market may not give you a picture of what's to come.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Sunday, March 27, 2022 4:08 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

it ended in September

i think you’re assuming/conceding a bit too much. it’s not clear that UI has a big effect on wages. wage growth didn’t change after the end of PUA. and when 21 states chose not to extend it in june didn’t have a big effect on wages. it’s not clear to me that rising gas prices will translate into lower wages either. if the labor market continues to be very tight, employers who are located far away from where workers live may even have to raise wages to compensate workers who commute

those dependent-child tax credits that were being delivered monthly as direct bank deposits only ended last January

I mean I clearly benefit from it too. like how else can you live a dignified retirement without Applebees parent company as part of your carefully balanced SEP IRA portfolio in the 21st century amirirte folks. line. gotta. go. up. ladies and gentlemen, The Economy

(jury out re me and my orbit)

those werent conditional on not working though like UI was. and the equivalent programs in Canada have little to no effect on labor force participation

xp aimless

like when Applebee’s guy says “we are no longer competing with the government for hiring”, he doesn’t have some special knowledge of how the labor market works, he’s just a conservative businessman saying things he believes

everyone seems to agree that we're headed straight for the shitbin once again, yay

exciting! https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-crash-crypto-tech-meltdown-wall-street-investors-hell-2022-5

NASDAQ is officially bear, yeah?

I heard some analyst saying that tech venture capitalists are now looking for 'ideas that actually work'... a stunning development

This was fun.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/05/why-this-computer-scientist-says-all-cryptocurrency-should-die-in-a-fire/

"And people keep finding out that just because something’s gone down 95% doesn’t mean it can’t still go down another 95%.

Grim stuff, thanks for sharing... I kept thinking I missed the boat, but you can only stay on this boat for a short time anyway

I get really sad whenever I hear people unthinkingly repeat that a stock drop means the stock "went on sale." Sometimes I try to use the metaphor of a Macy's "sale" price -- those shoes were never actually $550.

that BI article via archive because my paywall blocker didn't block:
https://archive.ph/gXkcO

Here we go

Did you cause a market crash again

It's not the stock market(s), but it'd be fittingly ironic if crypto dies a sudden and gruesome death because of fed interest rate hikes.

I still get my 401(k) statements in paper so I usually take a take a peek before recycling - I'm gonna sign up for paperless so I don't have to look at them

glad the stock market doesn't affect me, i'm having fun being poor tbh

Andy otm, I need to just stop opening them and immediately file them away in the still sealed envelope.

Money Printer: Can't live with brrr, can't live without brrr

seems good that the shitposters have so much influence

A meme account tweeted a fake headline that Costco was raising the price of their hot dogs due to inflation, and Costco's stock crashed 13%. You can't make this up. pic.twitter.com/gluBH5orcK

— Chairman (@WSBChairman) May 18, 2022

In my budgeting software, I reconcile all of our retirement/investment accounts on daily basis. It’s just a dull pain by this point.

I would think Costco sunk today because Target and Walmart sunk today and yesterday.

Yeah, in the correlation/causation dept, tons of stocks are tanking without any fake hotdog memes necessary

Probably more likely, but I thought it was funny that the fake tweet got picked up and shared by the House GOP account and a bunch of other blue check marks in the process.

Lol y’all talking about investment accounts and retirement funds, I have 3 grand til mid-September and that’s all I’ve got absent a job falling into my lap.
1500 of that eaten up by the mortgage.

yeah COST was already down all month and in pm due to target, retail shitting in general.

If we are entering a recession (as the stock traders fear), this will be a weird one: unemployment is about as low as it can get.
Supply chain issues obviously a factor in the slowdown, fear about the Ukraine conflict spreading, slowing Chinese economy, etc. But the ultra low unemployment and strong US dollar are not historically good indicators of a looming recession

it's a self-imposed recession that the fed and GOP will allow to end once the GOP regain power.

(so yeah, i'm not expecting a big one)

although all this shit is over

Since the tides do indeed seem to be turning, Let’s hear it:

What’s your favorite/funniest memory of the free-money, loss-making, VC-subsidized consumer start up era?

— Bucco “Buyback” Capital (@buccocapital) May 20, 2022

Yeah those companies leaving unregulated dockless bikes at the dead of night scattered randomly around cities were the bane of city governments for like a year.

Then they were all stolen or vandalized or dumped in creeks for city crews to clean up.

I think they pulled a dozen scooters out of Lake Merritt in Oakland in a single month

But the real benefit is for the homeless who break the locks and then have a free bicycle to ride around

I think a lot of the stock market right now is just the helium that's been pumped into it over a number of years finally being let out. But certainly massive increases in basic cost of living expenses are not going to be helpful for a consumer-driven economy.

thinking about this snippet from target's earnings report

Target:

"Many guests are sharing their uncertainty of the overall state of the economy, but are feeling more positive about their personal finances."

— modest proposal (@modestproposal1) May 18, 2022

I feel like I've seen economists describing that phenomenon before, where stuff like inflation just generally makes everyone uneasy even if they are personally ok