Yeah Ashburn in Loudoun. And you’re right, we don’t have nearly enough hole in the wall places here. It’s generally either high end, or chain. But even just getting subway footling now is 11 dollars. I walked by DD the other day and just a 6 pack of donuts was 10 bucks. It’s not that I can’t afford it, I just can’t justify it or rationalize it. Just seems crazy wasteful to me. Especially adding in the other reasons I mentioned.
The wife and I enjoy breakfast out on the weekend. Sure we could eat at home much cheaper but it's our way of getting out and they allow the dog to sit outside with us. People pay for ambience and convenience. We eat at a friend's restaurant and leave a nice tip for their staff. They are one of the few places that have tried to keep prices down as much as possible instead of jacking their menu up like almost every other place in town. I'm pretty frugal and probably suffer from a bit of income insecurity despite being pretty well off long term prospectively but even I understand the need for restaurants as diversions. With that said, I know way too many people that eat out on a regular basis. We have almost completely cut out eating out with exception of our breakfast place because the cost no longer justifies the product anymore even including the ambience. Prices have skyrocketed in my area as I'm sure they have everywhere. For all the complaining however the parking lots are still packed so I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon.
All that same vein, there has been some discussion that some workers have been retained longer than normal due to the difficulty in finding replacements. It was thought that even though some areas have seen slow downs it was better to run fat for a bit than be in a pickle where you couldn’t get needed help. Time will tell how much the FEDs huge tightening slows the economy down. I don’t think that anyone can argue moving to close to a 5% fed funds rate won’t have some large effect. Just the effect on the housing sector is big as that typically makes up 25-30% of most peoples expenses.
Been there recently, until they get their own car and DL then dinners together are tough as they have jobs, friends, sports etc. Ships passing in the night. Prepares you for the empty nest.
For some not having to cook at home, cleanup and figure out what 5 people want to eat is a big reward. Not sure how you measure that in terms of dollars and cents.
Sometimes it’s not that hard. Buy good companies with good long term prospects that will always have a demand for their products and services. Often I go contrary to the “experts” so long as I have a long term horizon. Did it with BA, GE when they were getting crushed now a few years later I have huge returns in historically great companies. BA still hasn’t really hit stride yet IMHO.
One of my best investments was a boring plain vanilla company. I bought 50 shares in Mickey Dee's in 1990 at around $26 a share. It recently closed at $264 and that's after two 2 for 1 splits. I originally purchased 50 shares for around $1,300, contributed around $5,000 to the Dividend Reinvestment Plan and reinvested all dividends through the plan. Below is the value of my investment as of the close yesterday.
This is the most false post in the history of Too Hot and adding Biden to Mount Rushmore is the dumbest statement I can remember. Those are all part time jobs. There is negative wage growth. If the job report is so great, why are the Feds going to continue to raise interest rates? Everything at the grocery store cost more and more. Gas is still outrageous. Imagine being a small e-commerce business shipping 20,000 orders a year and your cost goes up 10%. Companies did not hire for the holiday season. Businesses cannot afford full-time workers. Everything cost more, except for Tito's. This economy sucks unless you are wealthy. Upon Further Review: That ‘Hot’ Labor Market Is Really ‘Ice Cold’
I’m no big fan of Ole Joe, but the hot labor market is in part anyway exactly why they are still raising rates. And gas prices adjusted for inflation are right around historical norms. Gasoline Prices Adjusted for Inflation | US Inflation Calculator
Man you are just outraged that Joe is doing so well! Must really suck for you guys. You were hoping for stagflation. Instead inflation keeps coming down and job totals keep going up.
Well, at least you labeled your post as false before you started in on a bunch of factually false information to try to make yourself feel better about...a good jobs report. No, they aren't just part time jobs. No, there has not been negative wage growth. Why are you just making stuff up? These are easily verified (or in this case, disproven) claims. Did you figure nobody would look?
Or he didn't look when someone fed those lines to him and now he is too embarrassed to admit he didn't check his sources before spreading misinformation.
The article reminds me of Trump and his supporters criticizing the BLS data in 2016 when the Donald was a candidate and Obama was in office and then citing the employment data from the same source as an example of his success after he took office in 2017. In case anyone may have forgotten. 19 times Trump called jobs numbers ‘fake’ before they made him look good After a Good Jobs Report, Trump Now Believes Economic Data Spicer claims that jobs numbers ‘may have been phony’ before, but now they’re ‘very real’
i don’t think he’s embarrassed. MAGA types know no shame (unless being sentenced for Jan 6th attacks). He doesn’t care someone told him that and he doesn’t know how or care to check it’s veracity. Some people live in a completely different reality.