Shhh... Recession forgot to tell retailers it is here...

I was quoting Rowe. From the vid. Verbatim.

Do your own homework.

 

So it’s not true ?

 

I have a direct to consumer e-commerce business. In 2019 we had a conversion rate around 4%. Last week it was .34% with 25,000 unique visitors. That's a lot of lost money. Our factory in Poland closed due to 40% increase in natural gas. This current ‘supply-side energy policy driven inflation‘, a purposeful effort to shrink the economy and yet tenuously maintain control, has never happened before. The people behind the Build Back Better agenda are, in reality, experimenting with a theory.

 

I know funny, and that was pretty funny.

You lose your preparation H tube or something?

 

Look out man...he's rocking the ostrich pom poms today bro....dont get too close, might get an poked out!

 

And this is from an almost identical survey in January 2020 after three years of the Trump Administration and prior to the pandemic.
Survey: 77 Percent of Americans Stressed Over Finances

 

Thats BS. When you are looking at economic news, always remind yourself… the people producing the news have a vested interest in maintaining a very specific outlook. Everything was cheaper and everyone was making more money.

 

Just heard it’s looking like we had pretty respectable numbers for March but they’re in the process of finalizing them. Probably did as well in March as Jan/Feb combined.

 

What does Polish natural gas prices have to do with US energy policies? Wasn’t that an effect of Russia invading Ukraine?

 

Get it while you can.

Eventually the fat will run out of the system and things will slow down.

 

We are heading to a recession, just not the kind we have been used to and that's because of QE Infinity. The Fed changed the rules back then and we are seeing the saplings of their seed. Look at prices. Of course the average American shopper is too distracted to notice the death by a 1,000 paper cuts. But, there are many shedding light on massive price increases because they are anal enough that they kept all of the grocery receipts over the past 5 or so years (I am one of those). Some have warned that Costco is about to lay down the hammer with cost increases never before seen, coming this summer. Like a 50% hike in membership rates and 50% increases in thousands of products. But then again, they have already been doing that if you looked at the bill over the past 6 months. Put it this way, we'll be seeing $9.99 rotisserie chickens this summer. Adios to the $4.99 chicken. It's just starting folks and the old days of knowing exactly when we are in a recession may not use the same guidelines. You already have seen major employers laying off employees and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Unknown to the sheeple, 70% of all small businesses are going to have to make a hard decision by year's end. It's those EIDL loans that they are now having to pay back. My wife has paid 6 months already and she's doing well enough to continue to pay. But 70% of all small businesses in the US either haven't started to pay their loans off or are paying just interest payments. Some have already thrown in the towel and shut their doors. Keep in mind you can get an extension but interest penalties are added to the end of the loan, meaning if a small business waits a year to pay the loan, they are looking at 30% added to the end of their loan, meaning you borrowed $100K, you now owe $130K before interest. My wife also for the first time since she started her company in 2007 not seen double-digit growth. Actually she is down double digits. Keep in mind she grew 800% in 2009 and 2010 and had at least 45% year-over-year net revenue increases every single year, until 4th quarter 2022. Her industry is very subdued, they don't talk to each other that much, but recently she has been talking with a few of her national competitors and they are also hurting. Come to find out, her entire industry is hurting with many having already gone out of business. Konica Minolta is hurting so badly, they can't pay her the $50K they owe her and she's the largest customer of theirs in Alabama.

Talking with funeral home directors all over the US, for the first time since the 1970s, people are pulling back on funeral costs. Even black funerals are spending very little which wasn't seen during or after the Great Recession. For those that don't know, the black community spends more on a funeral than any other race, by a very large amount. Funerals are a big deal and they celebrate them unlike white people, who just slap their loved one in a casket, have a little speech and then toss them in the hole in the ground and then head to Olive Garden to eat dinner. A 3 hour funeral vs an hour. But since the 3rd quarter of last year, a massive drop in orders nationwide. People are pulling back and guess what drives the US economy? Consumerism. 70% of the GDP is consumer-based and we are seeing a very big drop in spending.

I'm hoping it's not a bad recession because I like many of you is about to retire. Seeing my retirement portfolios drop 22% last year was alarming. I actually have stopped this semi-retirement gig and got a 12 month contract to help with the bills. I may continue taking contract work until Medicare, which is almost 8 years away. It may give us some breathing room until my wife's business gets over this downturn. Got to stay positive and lay my fears at the feet of Jesus because it doesn't help to constantly worry about things out of my control.

 

If you mention here how our economy is crap, many reply the global economy is crap. You can't have it both ways. US energy policies are crippling us and the global green energy policies are doing the same around the world. Did Russia invade Ukraine in the last administration or did they do it with this administration? There was peace with the last administration. There is not peace now. Weak leadership here and around the world. Since Covid the world has gone backwards. Just a fact.

 

We could have been going to Olive Garden after a funeral? That's a lot ritzier than KFC.