January 21, 2023
Where'd All the Workers Go?
“These Workers are Gone Folks, and They Ain't Commin' Back (h/t Springsteen) ” Content creators like to make a lot of hay about why the US is seeing worker shortages in service jobs. Most of it is a bunch of feel-good bunk that ignores the fact that most service jobs suck. A "living wage" isn't worth a damn if you get yelled at all day...
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January 13, 2023
Ponderance from the Money Bin
Notes from the second week of 2023... I'm officially dropping Used Car Bubble from the list citing a major correction in used car prices. Also I'm conveniently ignoring inflation because no matter how much you talk about it, what matters is how it feels. Whatever Fed Looking at my year end finances, here's my unscientific Personal CPI ...
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January 10, 2023
New Year, New U
2023 is Off to a Great Start Shark If by great, you mean holy hell WHAT happened. The week between Christmas and New Year's was quiet... too quiet. I'm fairly certain someone uttered those words b/c on January 3rd the dam burst, and we all washed up on shore several miles down the river. I wasn't alone, this deluge of chaos was confirm...
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December 12, 2022
Life Will Humble You
“Life is a long lesson in humility. – Sir James Matthew Barrie” Any attempt to impose your will on others, the world or the universe will often result in your own humiliation. I've seen it in several ways over the past few months: at work, on the Internet, and in my own home. The lesson I savor this morning is best summarized by the Ri...
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December 10, 2022
Week 50 - Where Do I Fit In?
Much of this week’s notes came from an interview with Felix Zulauf by Global Macro Update. I recommend the watching the full video. It got me thinking about two things: Value and Risk. "What does this have to do with me?" you might ask. First off it'll be a rough ride with your 401k as market flucate to digest all of this. It's possibl...
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December 8, 2022
Job Market for Engineers
via (The Scoop: The 2022 Hiring Market, as seen by Tech Recruiters) A couple of key points from Gergely Orosz's article.. “The market has slowed down from the frenzy of 2021-Q1 2022” Can confirm in the smaller company world. In fact he states that "expect most former FAANG engineers to not join smaller companies", which is 100% spot on...
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December 4, 2022
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong
Or why this time it's still not different Scanning through my year end materials I came upon this gem from TKer where we look ahead to Wall Street market predictions, but more importantly review last years' prediction. Are we surprised that NONE of the rosey predictions for the S&P 500 came true? No. Are we surprised that the market fe...
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December 2, 2022
Weekly Notes 2022-W49
Weekly Notes 2022-W49 Big take away this week was that more companies are using weakening business and labor conditions to claw back remote work from employees. In my opinion this was always the plan. If your company has not committed to a remote first culture, there is a high probability that you will find yourself back in the office ...
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November 29, 2022
Local Yokels - CLT in the News
A bunch of local (Charlotte, NC) news mostly from my favorite local newsletter The Charlotte Ledger. Definitely worth the sign up, mostly the work of Tony Mecia and Cristina Bolling. Ledger is my second favorite local newsletter after North Carolina Rabbit Hole by Jeremy Markovich. Both are free, and certainly worth supporting. Dirty C...
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November 26, 2022
Weekly Notes - 2022-W48
Three themes dominated the notes this week: Energy, Interest and Recession. First I think it's important to note that everyone is trying to call bottom on the market because they want to buy in at the absolute low point. I think that's wrong because market timing is a gimmick. That said I do believe the old adage "buy low sell high" an...
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November 23, 2022
Breaking Social Media (or how I quit my job and became a chicken)
I've spent the better part of 2022 away from social media "breaking" news and I'm happier for it. In that light I'd like to share some of my favorite articles of the week, and how I found them. If you follow my weekly business notes you know that I always link the source and I'll attempt to do so here as well. Here are a few cool finds...
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November 20, 2022
Lies and Statistics
> The 1.3 million layoffs represents represent only about 0.9% of the 152 million employed during the period Yes, and as I noted all tech jobs are around 20% of the economy if we are generous and include tech manufacturing and services. Can tech stop navel-gazing for a minute? > American workers are earning just 12 cents more now than ...
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November 19, 2022
The Next 30 Years
A lot of politicians claim to create thousands of high paying American manufacturing jobs, but in this case it appears COVID, Russia and China have done the work for us. As I noted in my latest weekly business notes (https://bit.ly/3GuaLq8), the collapse of the global supply chain is forcing manufacturing to revaluate how and where the...
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November 18, 2022
What..the..what!?
What the heck.. is this thing on? I found HEY World through David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried's posts. I signed up for a free trial of HEY.com email client and was instantly hooked. 24 hours later I plunked down $99 and haven't looked back Wait, you PAY for email? I have for a very long time. I believe that services that are use...
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