Screwball

Andretti, General Motors team in F1 pursuit - Speed Sport News

The combines are working overtime.

Oh, please. That's about as stupid as some dipshit who told people to learn to code.

I don't agree with some of that article, and I could care less what Mike Rowe has to say, even if he does have a TV show filming him shoveling shit. But: It's all about the bottom line. Living the great life in the hamster wheel Я us.

The draft ended in 1973 if I remember right. I was a year too young but would have been toast as my number was 8. Some of my buddies weren't so lucky. The war was a huge thing to us people as we were all worried about going, not to mention all the stuff that was going on here. Like the 1970 Kent State thing. And of course we had the anti-war songs as well. Wild times, and not so good. I knew people at Kent State, even to this day, on both sides, students and the guard. I also had a bunch of buddies who ended up in Nam. Some didn't come home, and many didn't come home the same. Some are not right to this day, including one of my best buddies who still has flashbacks. Then of course there were others; like the guy in the bowling alley I worked who went nuts. Hid in the back of the bathroom in the last toilet stall thinking he was in Nam foxhole and going to kill anyone who came near him. What do you do with someone like that? And it was all for what?

I must respond to this - good stuff and well said. I'm not good with words - they are not my bag - numbers are. But I'm going to give it a shot... What Del said above is spot on, and much of what I think is missing today and have for quite some time. Let me put it this way; I'm old (66) so I grew up in an entirely different era - my parents grew up through the Great Depression so they knew the economical pain - and they were frugal. Very frugal - and I was brought up the same way. I was taught - like so many my age - if you don't have the money to buy something - don't buy it. You did what you had to do in order to accumulate enough money to buy what you wanted (bike, car, house, etc.). It doesn't work that way anymore, and I get that, for better or worse... This is about our kids - or you might say - our youth (no matter how these survey's break them down). Our youth truly are our worlds raw materials when it comes to our (their) future. I've always believed that, and taught my kids with that belief (among other things) in mind. To take it further, in my experience, as a retired engineer by trade, now teaching our youth in a college and high school setting - I am the one who is getting the education. I admit, I am a fish out of water, not trained nor have experience in teaching young people. I did do a lot of training to fellow co-workers in the shit show known as Corporate America - the cesspool of bullshit that it is. So the only thing I have going for me is I know the material - which is a good start IMO. I've already watched the alternative where we have teachers who know jack shit about how the "real world" works - but teach school and author books. I came to the conclusion after teaching school for fun money after retirement - our educational system is a complete mess - ran by the same clueless greedy pricks who run our corporations. Huge and stupid money spent on (in the trade school setting along with the college) administration bullshit while the kids still slave away with 10 year old computer equipment, robots, CNC machines, and welding equipment . IT staffs at a bare minimum, clueless as well (they hate me), and the administration should get an Oscar for Marketing Bullshit. They treat it like an invitation to Harvard - watch for your acceptance letter - then let them play games on their phone all year. The high school kids figuring out what they want to do next year say hey, let's go here so we can fuck off all day. Truly Sister Mary Elephant - I could write a book on the daily mayhem. College will get there - I can already see it. Bad. I don't know how much longer I can last. I am not a babysitter, and will not be, even if it makes me some beer money. It's about the teaching. Our companies cannot hire good people (or enough of them) - I know because I was part of it. It's not getting any better. I don't like what I see but it is what it is. What do we do? At some point the entire shithouse is going to blow up. We don't have enough people to do what needs to be done so all of us eat. We now have HR departments so inept, they couldn't hire an ant to play in sand. But there is nobody to hire even if they knew what they were looking for, so there's that... Let's start with the kids - it is their future after all. Del's right - they are not lazy (some really are though - that can be fixed) and and they want someone to teach them. I can't stress that enough. So many of these kids are begging for attention, guidance, and love. The system (along with their parents - it all starts at home) is failing them - and they know it - but they don't know how to fix it. I don't either, but maybe I can help them. I love my classes and my kids, no matter how old they are. I really do this because I think I might be able to make a difference, and we sure as hell need that. Invest in our young. I had a kid last semester who came into class the first day when it was 95 degrees outside with a hoodie so you could only see his eyes, nose, and mouth. OK, let's see where this goes - you never know. A few weeks later he wore a hoodie with a baseball thing on the front. I asked him if he was a baseball fan. Yep. The rest is history. We eventually had a baseball in class so I could show him a curveball that would make him a 20 game winner. He did, I did, and the class got a big kick out of it. We even made a drawing of a flattened baseball cover. Turns out he was from the Bahamas. As the semester went on his hoodie ended up on the back of his head, he was asking questions, and having a ball. Really came out of his shell. Great kid, and we became buds. This is why I took great interest in this survey. People need to get into people. Fuck all this other bullshit.

Totally agree on the costs of a home. Once people couldn't buy homes, they jacked the shit out of rent so you can't afford to rent either. And how many can/do save enough to come up with a down payment on a house? At least one that helps them afford it. When you have no savings, that loan isn't happening. The age of NINJA is over (thank goodness). If you follow the markets this topic (due to interest rates) is usually a hot and widely discussed topic - so I am not unaware of the problems. But I'm still bewildered to have watched people go out and buy an overpriced house with interest rates at all time lows and think they got some kind of a deal . People that bought a house in the last 2-3 years (maybe longer) are now underwater (adding on edit; unless they put enough down) with the current interest rates. Maybe that won't matter if they want to live there for years, but they are going to get hosed if they sell now, if they can sell at all.

My attendance records this last semester were as bad as I've had. I tell them the very first day "if you want to pass this class, you have to do this" which includes showing up for class. I flunked about 1/5 of the students, and all were because they didn't show up, which got them behind, and they couldn't catch up (even with tutoring). Why would you sign up for a class, 2 times a week for 2 hours, then show up for half of them - then wonder why you fail. Because you deserve to, and how about that $XXXX you just pissed away? And taking notes isn't against the law either - especially in my class - but they show up with a phone. No paper, no pencil, no nothing. Amazing! And they are not very good at following directions either. Many of these kids not only flunked my class, they are going to flunk life.

I'm not trying to boil it down to one thing - as I don't think it is a one thing problem - nor exclusive to age groups. I know plenty of people my age (late 60s) who are also terrible at money/budgets/spending/etc. I also understand it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet. I have argued that for years - and it's not getting any easier. But these are the cards we are dealt - so we must play the had we have. Or eventually you starve.

I can't speak for everywhere, but the educational system around here is a complete mess. I don't know what my college does for financial stuff, but the high school kids I had for 3 years were clueless, and I'll go on record the lock downs and zoom meetings during COVID didn't help one bit. I had some down time one day waiting on a kid to come back from a trip to the office. I asked the kids if they knew how to make change - not a clue (this was a STEM class with a room full of so-called wannabe machinists). They didn't have much of a clue for a lot of other things either. Now I think I am seeing these same things with the frosh in college. Last semester was one of the worse ones I've had. I gave up the high school stuff because I was tired of playing Sister Mary Elephant.

Spending cash/credit has been embedded in our culture due to advertising and cheap/easy credit. I remember people bouncing checks. They would come in to pay for the check - and the $30 dollar fee along with it - and not bat an eye. It was worth the extra 30 to have fun for one night knowing the check was going to bounce. Nuts! It's all about consumption - the more the better. We are a shopping mall with a flag.

You don't need a financial advisor to keep a budget. Maybe I'm too old, but you don't buy "splurge" items when you don't have the money to pay for them. I saw this with my kids, and I hear it from other parents. This is the "I want it now" mentality we see in TV commercials. The younger people just don't seem to be very good with money/credit. Or maybe numbers in general, as I see in my classes. Many of these younger people can't make change, balance a checkbook, and some struggle with basic math. Their parents and educational system has failed them IMO. And of course easy and cheap (not so much anymore) credit is also a culprit. This is not a good picture going forward for many I suspect.

This part kind of stuck out to me; Some have zero emergency savings, but know more about managing their finances than an advisor, and look to social media for advice. Maybe that isn't such a good idea?

Noted and I stand corrected.

That survey had absolutely nothing to do with politics. I honestly don't know how you guys get that stuff from it. I thought is was some good insight into the current human thought and culture, but I guess it all has to be tribal these days.

I don't know where to put this, but I found it really interesting. I don't think it really fits with investing, so I didn't want to put it there. This is a survey published by Prudential Insurance. ****Warning; the link goes to their webpage, which only shows part of the survey - then you have to download the rest. **** It's 5 pages of mostly graphs and opens in another tab for me using FF. Generational Gap Grows: Work & Money Outlook Divided (Fact Sheet)

I skimmed the one from Goldman. I'm familiar with the Jan lady who is their lead (sell side - get to that shortly). They covered their ass by saying so many things are dependent on how other things go down. I think that is accurate. The market doesn't like uncertainty, and there is so many volatile things going on. *** But what's the "buy side" up to? Wall Street’s Big Banks Score $1 Trillion of Profit in a Decade - Bloomberg Decade? 2012-2013 ish, after we bailed their criminal asses out in 2009. They've been off to filthy rich lollipop land ever since. I liked this part at the end; Bold mine. That's the Chinese Wall, one way they use to cheat, and always have. Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel.

Retail Investors Took a Beating in 2022. Will It Continue in 2023? - Bloomberg A visual to go along with the data in posts above. Broken down by the 11 Sectors. I can't fit all the industries, but you can see a similar chart here at Finviz This is based on the following;

These Are the Stocks That Kept Investors Up at Night in 2022 - Bloomberg Among others, but OUCH!

I'll give the "why" a shot based on my experience. In the countless "corporate obedience training classes" I had to endure, I found the material excellent and presented in a way to change the "culture." In another class, 8 years prior, I was a part of a Six Sigma two year development project who's final thesis determined there was a "culture" problem. WTF? Which really proved - management was inept. They were the culture. But that was not allowed to be the answer. That's all a bunch of corporate bullshit peddled by corporate worms - because that's what they get paid to do, and it never changes shit. It is all decided by bean counters and the next quarterly earnings report. As Carlin said - they don't give a fuck about us.

At the end of they the people who win are the swine bankers.

Speaking of dispensaries; thank you Michigan. Giggle.

Getting back to investing... Treasury Direct still works. You can make 130 or so bucks a month on 40 grand, which is better than cash. 4 week T-bills.

It's the fun time of the year when the prognosticators give their predictions for the next year. Fun stuff, you can find all angles to fit your outlook. So here's mine: 2023 is going to be a giant shit show. Happy New Year!