1984Echoes

Maybe... I'm not sure how much they want to challenge him. But also... spots might be open in Toledo if Kreidler/ Clemens end up in Detroit as bench guys or whatever. But the key issue obviously will be whether developmentally he's ready for a AAA challenge. I would have no idea on that...

He's losing Central Asia because of this. And he/ Russia will become known as China's Bitch because of this. China will suck Russia dry... and take every advantage of Russia's newfound weakness in every way possible. Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Khyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan) are all looking directly to China now... and repudiating (quietly, not loudly) Russia. There was an agreement to build the China One Road railway through Central Asian countries and bypass the Russian railway link. Turkey is pushing hard to join China's economic organization in order to lessen dependence on Russia (currently heavily dependent on Russian oil/ gas/ tourism/ etc. in their economy). Russia is not a pariah just yet... but so many countries are making these types of moves, right now, and it's not just the EU/ US/ Japan/ etc... Russia will end up becoming a backwater, glorified North Korea - unless they drastically change directions, like, right now - with... lots and lots of nukes. And... not much else.

Well, like I said... I'm not looking at the overall rate, which includes multiple factors (and that chart shows GDP growth running mostly at 1.5% until this last week..? Or is that weekly "projections"; not Actual GDP Rate?) Anyways, like I said... We may hit a temp recession. A slowdown based on what the Fed has been doing... But the underlying factors in the US Economy will make that a short-term scenario and not a deep recession that lasts years. The demand is still there. Supply issues will be fixed. (IMO). There are other growth/ investment/ US Government investment in infrastructure/ etc... That are going to kick the economy back into gear. Now, this is just my opinion and I'm not a financial expert... But I am going to guess that come next spring - April-ish, when construction picks up again significantly because of the warmer weather - that if we are in a recession... it ends quickly as the US Economy takes off again. But that's just me... my guess. The immediate outlook, per your chart... could be a recession coming up the next 6 months or 2 quarters...

They are going to use fixed rate loans for their Cap-Ex purchases not variable rate loans so... Screwball is not correct... a 1% rise in interest rates will NOT drop $222 mill extra interest expense/ loss to the bottom line. HOWEVER... And to your point G2... FedEx is a terrible recessionary company. They are a cyclical company directly affected by recessions, which means THAT is how they are affected by interest rates. Fed increases their rate by ALOT (doesn't have to be in one shot, can be over a longer period, a year for example, but a steady increase in rates that... ) creates a business/ economy slowdown. Economy goes into a recession = less shipping = huge drop in FedEx revenues = a bunch off 777's are now parked = NOW they are up shit's creek if they are over-leveraged. But it's the drop in revenues, not an increase in interest rates (not directly anyways) that impacts their EBITDA/ bottom line.

In other words... In Putin's Dystopian Fascist (Russians-Only) World: Genocide is termed "Acts of Compassion". The correct wording is: Russian Genocidal Nazi scum... ... need to be quarantined within the boundaries of Russia and never allowed to ever set a step outside of their borders. No Russian troops or Wagner mercenaries allowed outside Russian borders because they are simply... just... murderers and rapists. They are NOT professional soldiers. I don't hate Russian people (surrounded by lots of Ukrainians and Russians...); but my revulsion for... anyone who supports Putin and his war, the way that Russian soldiers act in any war theater, this xenophobic and hateful attitude/ mentality of theirs, Putin and all of his sycophantic supporters including legislators, oligarchs, FSB agency, and all the mealy mouthpieces in their media screaming to wipe Ukraine out... is off the charts.

Energy may especially be ROI driven... But a lot of manufacturing can exist only with Capex so the driver is not ROI but either must-purchase to sustain (modernization) or must-purchase if looking to expand operations (there could be ROI in there or delays based on interest rate environment but... they're looking long-term growth of revenues and don't look to alternative investments outside of their manufacturing expertise...).

Next test for Flores/ Olson/ Serretti/ Meadows/ Dingler/ and maybe a couple others will be AAA next year...

Obviously they are raising rates to fight off inflation... and they were probably too slow to start on that due to the huge uncertainty coming out of the pandemic. I don't know if we'll get a soft landing... can we avoid a recession while the Fed is trying to kill off inflation? That's the $64,000 question right now. They've jumped interest rates a few times already and will again this month... and yet Employment/ Inflation/ and consumer demand are still going strong. The rest of the world has slowed down enough that maybe the supply chain issues fix themselves (I believe they already have for the most part) but Russia's war on Ukraine is also F'ing everything up because that is causing worldwide food shortages/ fertilizer shortages/ energy shortages etc... all inflationary and counter-acting what the Fed is trying to do. But I think the U.S. will be sharply less impacted than anywhere else in the world... except maybe China also won't be affected too badly... they have a lot of insulation against these factors... So maybe we will get a somewhat soft landing with only a few markets impacted (housing, stock markets, food prices) whilst others aren't impacted all that much. We'll see... This is a really unique environment for us so... we'll see. But also... whatever impact we do get with these rising interest rates... I believe will only be temporary. We still have too many growth factors counter-acting inflation/ rising rates that says we're not going to get much recession, even if we do get some... and interest rates (Fed Rate) should stabilize around the 4% mark... I believe that was the Fed's target... Plan accordingly I guess...

If you want to use EBITDA you would use it exactly thus; As a way to determine how much debt load a company should carry. I haven't worked in a capital-intensive company in forever... so I don't remember the exact calc's... but you wouldn't use a 1-to-1 ratio (EBITDA = to exactly the amount of interest a company would pay monthly.. because a firm would be over-exposed to interest rates.. as you've pointed out. And here, Taxes and Depreciation (non-cash, money's already been spent on the capital assets) are meaningless so EBITDA is a perfect unit of measure...). Instead, the ratio would be 3-1 or 4-1 or 5-1 or something like that. A 2-5% rise in interest rates would not affect a High-EBITDA company as they aren't going to expose themselves to interest rate risk like that. Here is where rising interest rates hurt the corporate world: A) Growth companies. They're losing money, and need debt/ stock proceeds to fund their growth while they are building their business/ losing cash incessantly since they're trying to obtain that growth. Interest rate jumps = harder to service the debt when they are cash negative and bank funding dries up. Market will go down and growth companies' stock prices get hammered which means going to the capital markets can dry up on that basis. For growth companies, and can be a downward spiral to oblivion. It's one reason that growth stocks get absolutely hammered in a rising interest rate environment. B) A strong cash (EBITDA) company can still get hammered if they are highly leveraged. If Revenues/ EBITDA drop due to a recession/ slow-down, etc... Now they're can get trapped between a Rock (dropping EBITDA) and a hard place (rising interest rates/ debt service). But... that also only affects NEW debt or variable interest debt. Companies mostly sign onto fixed rate debt since they like static forecasted cash flows (stability). They may have variable rates on any lines of credit they have but for Cap-Ex purchases those should be fixed rate debt. That shields a company from rising interest rate environments. For the most part. But it may also affect their ability to take on new debt based on some of the factors I listed above... C) A rising interest rate/ recessionary environment may, or may not slow down capital expenditures, further slowing down an economy. Usually this is a function of current debt load. Highly leveraged companies will put off Cap-Ex because it's not a good environment to add debt. A low-or-zero-leveraged company, with a huge cash flow... might not care about the rising interest rates/ recessionary environment and go ahead with Cap-Ex purchases anyways because they don't care about interest rates. As to your statement that interest rate matters... I would rather say that it... depends. Upon the factors I outlined above. And that it's not really EBITDA that is impacted/ or impacts decisions from rising interest rates, but other factors. I wouldn't use EBITDA except to determine whether I want to add/ not add debt. I wouldn't use it to rate the affect Interest Rates are having on a company... Just my 2 cents.

EBITDA = Earnings BEFORE Interest Taxes and Amortization (depreciation). Notice how Interest is EXCLUDED in EBITDA? However... EBITDA is basically Cash Flows from Income Statement (excludes Balance Sheet movement) which states how much cash a company is making to service debt (interest) and taxes. Depreciation (amortization) is non-cash so it's excluded. You are in the ballpark but your technical details are a little off.

No it isn't. Debt Load is Balance Sheet. Not Profit & Loss. Wanna explain how the fuck you're getting debt load into EBITDA?

There is ZERO possibility of Xi getting dumped. Where is this fever dream coming from? Because it certainly isn't based on any reality.

I want Peacekeepers in Ukraine ASAP. 20-ish K Polish troops. 10-ish K German, Slovaki & Romanian troops. 10-ish K UK & Norwegian troops. 15-ish K US troops. Time to tell Putin to F Off. In a not so unsubtle way. Escalation is no longer an option for Putin. Force a de-escalation. And bring in the missile defenses to cut down or force the de-escalation of Russia's missile attacks. But that's just me.

Ditto.

I guess we're getting 75 basis points after all...

If you read this, read it to the... very. last. sentence. Russia post-war impact: https://www.yahoo.com/news/happens-russia-loses-081959272.html

"Coming to you LIVE from the White House: Franken. Al Franken. President of the United States... Al Franken."

Oops, I meant LF... I'm going to call that a mental typo...

"Retire" Miggy and then you can play both (Baddoo in RF, Carpenter at DH) against RH'ers... Or if one is faltering, send him down to Toledo to work on his game...

Show the evidence that the US strong-armed Ukraine into not taking a deal. Otherwise you are again full of crap. This was in the news every day, loudly and clearly and with NO US Influence whatsoever, that: 1) Ukraine kept pushing for negotiations and an end to the war. 2) Russia kept jerking them around because they didn't WANT serious negotiations. Russia had no interest in real negotiations, they wanted to take as much of Ukraine as they thought they could get away with taking and they were confident they could do so. This came out from multiple sources and in multiple instances. There were NO serious negotiations because Russia has not been serious from the start, or at any point. Putin wants as much of Ukraine as he can take, and the rest of Ukraine weakened to a pauper state and disallowed from entering the EU, ever, or NATO. Never allowed to enter the EU? That is NOT a serious offer. or one that Ukraine would ever accept. 3) UKRAINE ended the negotiations after Russian atrocities came to light. This takes no influence from the US whatsoever. Every single country and politician, from the U.K, to Poland, to Germany, to the U.S., EVERYONE has stated loudly and clearly that it is UKRAINE's DECISION on negotiations, and what they are willing to accept. If you have evidence to the contrary, then post it, and don't hide behind a paywall either. Show the evidence. Otherwise, you are full of crap. Again.

Toledo: Wins 10-9 in the 10th but even with that... not really anything interesting player-wise.... Erie: Loses 13-6. Parker 2 for 3 with two doubles and then PH for (I hope he's ok...) with De La Rosa... And Flores got completely rocked with 7 runs in only 1 inning pitched... WM: Loses 5-4. Jobe pitched 5 innings, 1 run on a HR, 2 hits 1 BB, 4 K's... nothing much of interest on offense. Lakeland: Loses 14-1. Nothing of interest on either side of the ball...

Called at 7.5 due to rain. Tigers win 8-4. Manning in 6 1/3 inn's 2 earned runs,3 hits, 1 BB, 4 K's and a total of 3 runs allowed, Chafin also had an unearned run to round out the score. Reyes (triple), Baez (triple, double), Harold, Tork (triple), Carpenter (HR) all finish 2 for 4. Lots of extra bases... Last time a Tigers team hit 3 triples in a game from 3 different players...?

The only heads rolling will be Russian.

I'm always high on hopium. Hopelessly high on hopium. But I'm good at it too...!

Kerry Carpenter with another HR. Ties it up in the 2nd after Manning gave up an opening inning run...