Maggie's Farm

Usually, when we speak of financial news, we're referring to central bank machinations and Wall Street piracy and great big old honking government budget contortions and hedge fund rapacity and interest rate shenanigans and so forth. That's great, because talking about the monetary policy of your next door neighbors on the evening news could get boring. "Well, Stefanie, we see a period of instability in cross-border money transfers for the foreseeable future. Ms. Howard maxed out the Discover card on those super-cute Louboutins I was telling you about during the break, and Mr. Howard, oh dear, has been to the strip club again, so I don't see them going to Sandals this winter. Now the weather..."

Actually, that might be more interesting than watching the evening news to determine whether you're flush or flushed in the spondulicks department. The same news is reported as all bad or all good depending on who's in the White House. "We're seeing negative unemployment rates this month, as more Americans are retiring after successful IPOs on their javascript empires before they're old enough to get their first job, and the Fed is continuing to hold interest rates at zero because nobody needs any money. However, our Aye-Team investigative reporters have discovered that one of those buckets at the gas pump at the Sheetz in Fishkill, you know, the ones with the filthy water and the squeegee? Well, it was almost empty, and the clerk behind the counter was unsure when he'd be able to refill it. As of this moment, it's unclear how long the monster in the White House can survive after news like this gets out."

Well, I don't have time to scrape all your data from your Facebook pages to see how your personal finances are going, so going personal in the financial news isn't practical for me. And I would never peek in your windows to see how you're doing, but hey Ted, you should really tell your wife to stop undressing in front of the home security camera with the default password still on it. No reason. But let's at least take a Saturday look around the internet to see how we're doing in general, shall we?

How Are Median Americans Doing?

Most economists and analysts tend to support the narrative that real income growth hasn’t increased enough for median Americans. Since the top 1% and 10% have seen their income and wealth increase, if real median incomes are flat lining, it’s a problem. As we mentioned in a previous article, if you look at real median income per person instead of per household, it looks better because households have shrunk.

My household has shrunk, too. My wife keeps wallpapering and the walls are getting closer.

Ready meal firm set to close with the loss of 169 jobs

The company produces frozen ready meals and since it was set up in 2014 has had just one profit-making year in 2016-17 when it made €400,000. Projected losses for year end 2019 are €2.6m and the parent company is no longer prepared to support it, the company's petition to the court states.

Oh dear. No ready meals in Ireland. This sounds vaguely familiar. The company was obviously poorly run, though. Look, they made a profit one year. Any Musk could tell you that's not how to run a company.

So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

Unless you’re “independently wealthy,” you probably don’t have enough money to open a small press bookstore or artist-run space, which means you’ll probably have to be a non-profit, which is almost guaranteed to be a terrible idea for a number of reasons. Sure, people will get excited at first and want to give you their tax-deductible dollars. Or maybe you’ll win some big prize to help you get started. We did. We won a $10,000 community art grant.

I don't see the problem. They wanted a non-profit, and that's what they got.

The impact of gratitude on adolescent materialism and generosity

Despite decades of research on materialism, there are few viable strategies for reducing materialism in younger consumers. In this paper, we present two studies conducted among over 900 adolescents that reveal a promising strategy for decreasing materialism: fostering gratitude. In Study 1, results from a nationally representative survey showed that children and adolescents with a grateful disposition were less materialistic.

Gratitude? For adolescents, Halloween now lasts for three months, while Thanksgiving consists of texting all day while your stepfather watches football and your mother orders takeout Chinese. Do the math.

Hackers breach HealthCare.gov system, get data on 75,000

A government computer system that interacts with HealthCare.gov was
hacked earlier this month, compromising the sensitive personal data of
some 75,000 people, officials said Friday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made the
announcement late in the afternoon ahead of a weekend, a time slot
agencies often use to release unfavorable developments.

Hmm. This article is unconcerned about HealthCare.gov data collection and an ensuing security breach, but doesn't like the timing of the announcement. Oh, and one of the squeegee buckets at the Sheetz is nearly empty. 

Lyft drops $100k against SF tax to fund housing for homeless

Ride-hail giant Lyft just dropped $100,000 to fight Proposition C, the ballot measure that would tax rich corporations to house 4,000 homeless San Franciscans. Yes, you heard that right: Lyft, not Uber, is pushing back against “Our City, Our Home” in a big way, On Guard has confirmed. It’s perhaps strange for a company whose CEO bragged to TIME Magazine in 2017 that his company is “woke,” and especially odd since the often-vilified Uber, which has weathered myriad recent scandals, confirmed to On Guard they’re not planning on donating for or against Proposition C.

I hope the tax money goes to fund $10,000 community art grants to help the homeless open non-profit, small press/artist-run spaces of their own.

In Reno, a boomtown resurgence leads to a housing crisis

Four of every 10 people who will move to Nevada this year will be from California, and most of those arriving in Reno and its suburbs are from the San Francisco Bay Area. Along with that human stampede have come rising home prices and rents - as well as rising anxiety for those living on the margins."We're not worried with keeping up with the Joneses," said Dave Frazier, who lives in one of the old motor lodges. "We just want to keep a roof over our head."

If they get evicted, they can always take an Uber to San Francisco and vote for a homeless tax on Lyft.

Goldman chief DJ’d just days after former assistant’s death

Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon took to the decks at a top New York nightclub just three days after the suicide of his former assistant, who was accused of stealing more than $1m of fine wine from the CEO.

I once played an Aerosmith record on my mom's stereo the day after my goldfish died. I still feel pretty bad about it.

Hotel Industry Signals Recession

RevPAR is the product of the hotel’s average daily room rate multiplied by its occupancy rate. It’s the most important ratio in the hotel industry. The hotel workers hours worked total also appears to have hit a plateau. STR, which measures the hotel industry, pre-announced growth of 0% to -2% in September. If this cycle is consistent with the last one, the economy would already be in a recession. However, it could just be a weak month which doesn’t mean anything for the broader economy.

I had no idea things had gotten this bad. The United States is apparently running out of Patels. Gentlemen, our country can't afford a Patel gap.

'Typhus zone': Rats and trash infest Los Angeles' skid row, fueling disease

Los Angeles County's typhus outbreak, which began in the summer, has expanded to as many as 92 cases, including 20 in Pasadena and a possible 18 in Long Beach, where five were still under investigation by the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services. The average number of typhus cases the county sees in a year is 60, which itself has doubled in recent years, according to the Los Angeles County Health Department. City officials recently declared downtown's skid row — roughly 54 square blocks where more than 4,000 homeless congregate — a "typhus zone."

Typhus? Oh dear. I hope Prince Albert is OK.

"You're A Disaster, An Embarrassment To Your Parents" - CEO Rages At Goldman Analyst During Earnings Call

"So if the stock continues to go down, based on these kids that play with computers and somebody else's money, we are going to buy back stock. We are going to screw these guys so badly that I don't believe that they will be able to only resign. They will have to commit suicide. So we are going to screw these guys so badly that it will be fun to watch. That will be my first priority other than the two top priorities of finishing HBI and paying down debt."

The CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs forgot to mention the lamentations of the Goldman women, but other than that, a fine, Muskish tirade. I bet that shortselling Goldman employee won't be deejaying anytime soon after that verbal beating. In other news, Cleveland-Cliffs Initiates Dividend, Expect More Upside

I hope you have a great Saturday everyone, with very few lamentations around your hopefully typhus-free home!