Why Your Local Economy is Crumbling
(00:00.832)
We got ourselves a very fragile economy. In my intro music for the radio show, I use some tidbits from Gordon Gekko’s Teldar paper speech when he talks about political and economic reality. Doesn’t make me popular by any stretch of the imagination. It doesn’t. First from
Bible, am I therefore your enemy because I tell you the truth? People aren’t like much who are honest and tell the truth and like the, you you’re ruining the party Markowski. I can go back, back to the nineties, the warnings I gave in regards to the dot coms and Ed Ron, the warnings that I gave warnings that I gave in regards to the real estate market.
2006, 2007, I can go on and on and on. People don’t wanna hear it. We wanna hear it, everybody’s like, la la la la la la la la. Markowski’s talking, I’m not listening. Yeah, well, not just me, a few others out there as well. I’m gonna go through some of the numbers, what we’re actually dealing with, the underlying foundation of our economy right now.
Currently we have credit card delinquency rates at a 12 year high. No bueno. No bueno. Not good. Not good. Our post COVID factory boom is going by the wayside. We’ve got companies laying off employees and cutting production. Got falling orders and rising inventories.
Not good, not good. I’ve talked at great length in regards to commercial real estate here in this country and actually some of the stories that I read, they actually try to put lipstick on the pig saying, well, it’s not as bad in the suburbs. It’s bad in the suburbs, too. It’s less bad. Everyone knows that we live in a world of less bad now. It’s it’s less bad.
(02:25.42)
That’s less bad. My mother -in does this all the time with her English. She does it reversed. She always says something is more better. But anyway, less bad is what we get when it comes to just about all economic news. The latest office tower mall valuations have freaking collapsed. They have collapsed.
I you’re talking buildings that were sold just a few years ago. The valuations are down 80 plus percent. And it’s hiding in plain sight. The banks don’t know what to do. They’re just holding on to these pieces of junk. And it’s it’s not going to turn. It’s not going to turn. Let’s look at your own community. Never just take a deep dive. Be aware when you drive around. How many?
Former doctors offices are now for rent. Office buildings, those side little, you know, places that used to have little hustling, busing little offices on your main street there. Empty! For rent! Major problem. Get other people talking about this, much like myself, Jamie Dimon. Again,
He and I have seen eye to eye when it comes to the overall economy for some time. He has come out and he still seems to think that the, know, the way the avoiding a recession, it may be 35 to 40 percent. So he thinks the recession is very likely. And again, they happen. They happen. And, you know, they’re necessary, quite frankly, they’re necessary based upon the way we live here in this country and how we spend money.
What we knew is we had to deal with recessions and actually get rid of the gunk and act like that lymphatic system that I’ve talked before to get rid of the garbage, to cleanse the system of all the crap that’s been thrown at us and all the ridiculous government spending and nonsense that comes down the pike. Home Depot issuing a warning about the economy. Consumers are feeling crummy about the economy and they’re dishing out less on major home renovation projects.
(04:55.212)
lowering its sales expectations for the year. They’re pressured, is customers are pressured by higher interest rates and concerns that the economy is getting worse. I mean, I can go on and on and on. can talk about delinquency rates with cars, a myriad of things. What does this mean? What does this mean? Well, again, this is what happens. This is what happens when you look to the government.
to fix things, to make things better. Printing money is not the answer. Subsidizing various different companies, picking and choosing winners and losers is not the answer. What we need the government to do is we need for them to get out of the way, let things fall by the wayside where they should. Money will find a proper flow, it always does. You don’t need the government to direct it. You don’t need a conductor, okay?
And if we do that, yeah, there’d be some pain a long way. Yeah, it happens. It happens. That’s okay. That’s okay. It will correct itself and we’ll move on. The more government intervention, the more we look for all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put the Humpty Dumpty economy back together again, they’re not going to be able to do it. Just like in the nursery rhyme. Watchdog on wallstreet .com.
