The Causey Consulting Podcast

The economy "doesn't add up" on purpose!

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Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey. 

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. In today's episode, I'm going to talk about how this suppose a disconnect in the economy is intentional. It's not happening on accident. It's not happening by magic. It's intentionally engineered to be the way that it is. We live in crony capitalism, and the economy functions for the wealthy, the fat cats, the hyper elite, not for people that are poor, working poor, indigent, middle class, etc. Think about it like a tube of toothpaste. Wealth continually gets squeezed upward and upward and upward, leaving crumbs and scraps for the people further and further down in the tube. I wish that wasn't the case, believe me. But I feel like we need to be real about all of this. I published a blog post titled actually, it makes perfect sense. Because I read this article on fortune and it just made me want to scream. I felt like that famous artwork, the Scream by Edvard monk. And I was like, I get now why he did this. It's like a primal, existential scream of like, who have these people been listening to? I'm so passionate about this. And it's like, I've been across platforms. My god, I've been on this podcast, I've been across blogs. A good amount of my personal time is taken up and content creation in writing, and publishing and editing in making podcast episodes. I have tried and tried to get the word out. So it's like, whenever I get viewer mail, whether it's someone that's been listening to my podcast, daytime or nighttime, it's somebody that's finally gotten turned on to one of my blogs. I like to ask, well, who have you been listening to? If this is new information for you? If you're just now waking up and getting with the program? What were you listening to before? Was it hotter? And hopium? Was it a BS artist? Was it a mainstream commentator? Where were you getting information before? What was going on in your mind that caused you to believe it? And then what happened that finally woke you up and made you say, You know what, I think maybe I'm gonna be a system that's rigged for the fat cats and the cronies, and not for me. I thought about this because an article was published on fortune.com. On March 15. The title is 40 year old homeowner says economy doesn't add up, colon, I'm making the most money I've ever made. And I'm still living paycheck to paycheck. And this was just like, oh my god, existential scream. It does add up, actually, it adds up perfectly. If you're at the top of this pyramid. It's intentionally made to not add up for John and Jane Q Public. This is all by design. I'm gonna read now from this fortune article. After years of managing household budgets through the stress of the worst inflation in a generation, US families are increasingly pressured by a different kind of financial squeeze the cost of carrying debt, I'm going to button and say, gestures broadly, look around at the economy itself. We're over $34 trillion in debt and counting. Of course, personal household debt is terrible, too. I've reported on that many times. Even though we were supposed to think that churning and burning doing great resilient consumer, the evidence just simply wasn't there. You have a majority of people living paycheck to paycheck, even people who are bringing in more than 100,000 a year are paycheck to paycheck. You have household swimming in debt, people doing Buy now pay later for groceries. You know, when there was that dystopian article about someone saying I don't want to be in debt trying to buy a carrot. I'm just long pausing here because it's like, what did you think was gonna happen? What did you think the consequence of all of this was going to be? I'll continue to read. Two years after the Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates to tame prices, delinquency rates on credit cards and auto loans are the highest in more than a decade. Oh, but churning and Barnet doing great resilient consumer. What a great Christmas we all had For the first time on record interest payments on those and other non mortgage debts are as big a financial burden for US households as mortgage interest payments. The figures suggest a difficult reality for the millions of consumers who are the engine of the US economy. The era of high borrowing costs, however necessary to slow price increases, has a sting of its own that many families feel for years to come, especially the ones that haven't locked in cheap home loans. And the Fed which meets next week for a policy decision. I assumed by the time this hits the airwaves that will have already happened, doesn't appear poised to cut rates until later in 2024. You also need to think about the US economy is so driven on consumption. You know, we've had leadership in the past that wanted to get America back on track for being a nation of production, rather than a nation of consumption. And we know what happened there. I'm going to read a little bit for you now from Donald Gibson's book battling Wall Street. I'm in the beginning of chapter two titled The National Program, Kennedy assumed the presidency of the United States with a program which had as its central purpose the advancement of the productive powers of the nation. This progress was to be achieved through an intense effort to expand and improve both the human and technological capabilities of the country. During the two years and 10 months that he held office, Kennedy attempted to use the power of his office and of the federal government to achieve this goal through tax measures, government programs government spending and monitoring credit policy. He tried to shape investment processes, educational policy and scientific and technological technological developments, in order to realize the country's immediate potential and to qualitatively enhance that potential in the future. Few stones were left unturned in this effort. Kennedy's aggressiveness in pursuit of economic progress was consistent with his views of the obligations of and the potential power of a president in quote. So the idea there being that instead of always focusing on consumption, we need to be producing something to this is why I say who somebody is having consensual sex with what they eat for lunch, what kind of exercise they take. That's not important to me. Someone's policies, however, matter a great deal. And we're still living with the ramifications of all that a decades later. Oh, Sara, you're just some kind of Kennedy apologist call me that if you want to. I'm just pointing out the the chickens have come home to roost. How are you going to drive an economic engine? That's like 70% based on consumption when the consumer can't consume any more when they're in debt up to their freakin eyeballs? Think about it. I'll continue to read now from Fortune as monthly debt payments take up more of workers paychecks, those consumers are more exposed to potential economic contractions. Hmm, also not accidental, and the cost of money affects people's perception of their own prosperity. A February paper from IMF and Harvard University researchers posits that the recent high cost of borrowing which isn't captured in inflation figures, kill Sopris manipulated figures is key to understanding why consumer sentiment remains lackluster, even as inflation is moderated. And businesses are hiring at a healthy pace. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't even come at me with that crap. What an insane dumpster fire the job market has been even in the world of freelancing have written about that as well. All of a sudden clients coming to a standstill paying you pennies on the dollar saying well, I know that we agreed to pay it net 15. But it's going to be net 90 And you're like, wait a minute, breach of contract. Hello. Hello. Hi, how are you? They don't care, then we have the money. That theory suggests the debt burden could be a drag on President Joe Biden's reelection bid with the economy consistently registering as a top concern at the ballot box. Yeah, I would imagine he's probably right in the same territory as Carter was. Now this is a part that I really want to hone in on. Nikki Samina. I've no idea if I'm pronouncing the name correctly or not. I'm just guessing Nikki Samina, a 40 year old recruiter living in Denver said she finally saved up enough to buy a condo last year but missed out on the ultra low interest rates that had made home ownership more affordable. In the early days of the pandemic. Naturally, that was an artificially overheated manipulated market. Those rates were not as low as they would have been in a natural situation. That was all also done by design. Because think about it. The rates were artificially low, and the prices were artificially high. It's super easy to get upside down in that situation because even though you may have a lower I'm using air quotes or a lower monthly payment, as the value of that house depreciates because it was so grossly overpriced, you can get upside down on it. Don't think that the fat cats don't know that. Don't think they haven't already wore gamed all of that out. It's not a coincidence.

Her 5.25% interest rate pushed her monthly payments to 1650. After a divorce in 2020, she shouldering $4,000 in credit card debt. I'm making the most money I've ever made. And I'm still living paycheck to paycheck, she said, there's this wild disconnect between what people are experiencing and what economists are experiencing in quote. No, see, this was the part where I felt like my head was going to pop off my shoulders and I'm just like drummer, I wish that more people would tune in, I wish that I wasn't shadow van, I wish that I could get my message out to more people because it's like, Who have you been listening to? These economists will lie to you. They don't give a flying F whatever it is that their corporate masters tell them to say they will say it. We could go on a freelancing platform today. Hire two economists and say economist a, I want you to find all the evidence wink wink that the economy is resilient and robust. Economists be I want you to do the opposite. And they would whatever results we're paying them to find they would find it's not about follow the evidence and then you tell me a logical conclusion a rational conclusion based on a fair and square analysis of the data. No, wrong answer. It's about we want a conclusion at the starting line. And at the finish line. What you do in the middle is whatever circular reasoning and Bs needs to be done to prove what we want you to say. As I have said so many times. Some of y'all are gonna follow the so called experts and so called economists right off a damn Cliff like the Pied Piper of Hamlin. In the episode that I recorded titled tele migration, bad journalism's and scare tactics. I said this, I said, he's an economics professor. He understands the economy and the future of work more than most people out there. Why? Because He's an economist. I've told you before, in my opinion, some of y'all are going to listen to these economists and follow them right off of a damn cliff. You're going to listen to them like the Pied Piper of Hamlin and go right off a cliff. You can buy any economist to say anything? Yeah, I said it. I'll put it out there. There are plenty of the so called journalists and so called experts and so called economist out in the media that can get paid to say anything. If you wave enough money, or you give them enough leverage enough incentive to somebody or you tell them, this isn't the narrative we're pushing? Are you going to go along to get along? Or are you going to be a problem, pal? Watch how quickly they fall in step. This is the world we live in. I'm sorry, if that is really offensive to you. Frankly, it should be offensive to you because the system we live in is rigged. Damn right. It is. I talked about this. Also, on the job market journal, a recent post that I had over there. Economists say, I'll read from that for a moment. Economists can say anything they want to or more accurately, whatever their corporate sponsors, tell them to say. And if they are wildly incorrect, zero consequences. You have to be so very careful who you listen to, and for what reason. But, but these people claim to be experts. Yeah. And I read now from Ted Sorensen's book, Kennedy. But his assumption of responsibility was not merely a political device or a constitutional obligation. He felt it strongly, sincerely and repeated it as we walked. How could I have been so far off base? He asked himself out loud. All my life I've known better than to depend on the experts. How could I have been so stupid to let them go ahead? Now was Ted Sorensen reporting on JFKs reaction after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. Experts have no problems leading other people off a cliff. Even history shows us this is true. I've also reported many times on how Oxfam went to Davos in January of 2023. And told all the wealthy power brokers there that the richest 1% bagged nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world put together over the past two years. In other words, during the pandemic, where while mom and pop shops were shut down, and John and Jane Q Public were suffering these fat cats and billionaires like the tics that they are in gorged themselves on the suffering of others and made huge sums of money, as if they didn't know is if Oxfam had to go and tell them that like it was really breaking news. Y'all gotta get your head in the game. All right. If you're listening to somebody that's telling you that everything is sunshine, roses, lollipops and gumdrops, you are going to get so incredibly steamrolled. If you think it's bad now, just wait. I know that sounds pessimistic. I know I'm not supposed to talk that way. But if you still are like, Oh, I'm just there's a disconnect. I just don't understand, oh, wake up. On March 12, I published the blog post, there will be bank failures, because Jerome Powell came out in the media and said, there will be bank failures caused by commercial real estate losses. And he very clearly said that the banks that would be in trouble would not be the big systemically important banks, the too big to fail banks. Oh, no, they're going to be just fine this time around. The banks that are going to be in trouble this time around will be small, medium, and regional banks. And I pointed out in that blog post, the podcast episode that I created bonus episode, Grifters are going to grift. And I talked about Dave Ramsey, oh, this, you don't need to be worried about your local bank. It's not Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley was just full of play yas. And he says your bank is safe, calm your butt down. Don't do stupid, but things. And he talks about how your little bank where grandma's CD and little Timmies paper route money. It's fine. Because it's not full of venture capitalists that are gaming the system. And it's like, well, how the hell does he know? And then Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we saw small banks failing. In fact, there was one in Kansas like a small town in middle of the road, Kansas, that failed Heartland tri state bank. And it's like, well, how the hell does Dave Ramsey know? Please, if it sounds like I'm yelling at you, if it sounds like I'm an angry parent or grandparent right now, it's because I really am. I want you to wake the hell up before you lose everything. I get it, people don't like these episodes that I make about prepping. If I say anything about emergency preparedness, people just tune out. They don't want to hear that. They don't want to hear I need to have food and water for an extended period of time. I need to be really careful about where my money is in case of a bank failure. They don't want to hear these things. Now, if I got on here and say quit your job, FOMO YOLO. It's whatever, flip the bird to your boss and tell everybody to eff off on your way out the door, I would get 10s of 1000s of downloads, because that's what people want to be told. And then meanwhile, you've got people going I don't understand why economists are saying that things are good, but things feel so bad. Because the system is rigged. We live in crony capitalism, and you can buy some a whole expert or some dumbass economist to say anything that you want them to say. They are pushing a deliberate agenda, and that agenda is not for the betterment of you and me. Please stay safe and stay sane. And I will see you in the next episode.

 

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