What is it to be wealthy? It varies a lot from country-to-country and even within countries. If you can afford a $1,000 monthly car payment, does that make you wealthy? What about a Ferrari? If you can buy any new Ferrari you’re probably wealthy… just not as wealthy as the person who bought a chunk of a luxury automaker.
It’s that time of the year when we start getting financial data from companies, so I’ll use that info in The Morning Dump, as well as the reaction to those filings, to try and get a sense of what’s going on. A good example is Ferrari, which continues to make even more profits as it focuses on the wealthiest end of the market. Lucid is trying to focus on a more mainstream market, though in the meantime it’s managed to find one extremely wealthy buyer.
On the lower end, there’s a lot of action in used cars, though there’s some indication from Carvana that there’s only so much margin to squeeze out of those buyers. In North America, Stellantis is doing better than in the past, though again it’s running into profit challenges.
Ferrari Remains An Exceptionally Good Business
For all of the talk of the possible failure of the Ferrari Luce, the car is sold out for the first year according to the company. If there’s going to be a negative impact on the company overall it certainly hasn’t happened yet as the automaker’s second-quarter financials show a company that can turn obscenely fast and gorgeous cars like the F80 into huge profits.
I’ll talk about Stellantis in a minute, but the companies share an owner, and it’s wild to think that it took Ferrari selling about 3,600 cars to make more than $500 million in Q2, whereas Stellantis sold 1.6 million cars to make $336 million. Ferrari is a luxury brand built on scarcity and there will always, I think, be buyers.
A good example is the Purosangue, which starts at more than $400,000. Add the apparently popular Handling Speciale package and a little paint, a few options, and suddenly it’s a $500,000 four-seat crossover.
“The robust results achieved in the second quarter reflect our disciplined execution and the continued strength of our strategy. A sustained trend in personalizations allows us to raise the guidance for the year” said Benedetto Vigna, CEO of Ferrari. “In a single quarter, we introduced the Ferrari Luce and the Ferrari 12Cilindri Manuale: two very different sports cars that embody the same Ferrari DNA and demonstrate how we blend tradition and innovation in unique ways.”
Ferrari is also a company that makes money off of motorsports, as opposed to losing money on motorsports, which is impressive. The company did so with more sponsorships and the rental of engines to other F1 teams,
For all the shakiness of the overall car market, the highest end isn’t having any issue selling cars. Ferrari has filled its order book through 2027, meaning if you want to get a new Ferrari you might be waiting until 2028 to get something special.
A Saudi Prince Bought Lucid — Not A Lucid. A Whole 5% of The Company
Yeah, buying a Lucid is cool, but buying a whole chunk of the company at a discount is cooler. Per his own tweet, Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, bought 5% of Lucid Motors.
قدّم مكتبي الخاص الإفصاح المطلوب للـ(SEC) بشأن حصتي البالغة ٥٪ في @LucidMotors، التي استحوذت عليها بقيمة سوقية للشركة تقل عن ملياري دولار أمريكي.
My Private Office filed the required SEC disclosure regarding my 5% stake in @LucidMotors, acquired at a market cap of less than $2B.
— الوليد بن طلال (@Alwaleed_Talal) July 28, 2026
The entire company is already a there-but-for-the-grace-of-the-Saudi-Public-Investment-Fund kinda operation, and this only strengthens the ownership stake that the country and its royal family have in Lucid. I think there’s been a concern lately that the PIF might look at Lucid the way it looked at LIV golf due to weak financials and yank its support, but the opposite seems to be happening.
Not only did the purchase of stock show a commitment to the brand from the Saudi family, Prince Al Waleed seems to have bought during the dip that happened when a blog falsely (according to Lucid) claimed the company was considering bankruptcy and saw the stock drop by as much as 57%. The price of the stock has since gone up (seemingly helped, in part by the stock purchase).
Depending on when exactly he purchased, he could have seen a large increase in the value of his stake.
Stellantis Had A Positive Quarter Thanks To Truck/SUV Sales, But Profits Lagged A Bit
This time of year always reminds me that topline numbers aren’t always a great indicator of reality, or at least, of the generally accepted perception we call reality. Earlier this week, Ford reported a quarterly loss and everyone got excited and the share price went up. This quarter, Stellantis has swung from a loss to a gain, prompting its Milan-traded shares to immediately drop (shares on the NYSE were also slightly down as of writing).
What’s going on here? A lot of it is the extremely narrow profit margin that Stellantis posted as CNBC reports:
Stellantis posted industrial free cash flows of 1 billion euros at the end of June, comfortably beating Citi’s forecast of 600 million euros.
Analysts at the Wall Street bank said that while this figure reflects improved operating performance, the auto giant’s adjusted operating income margin remains at a “very low” level of 1.8%.
Positive free cash flow is obviously welcome, analysts at Citi said in a research note to clients. “Nevertheless, we expect investors will await more evidence of positive operating performance before revisiting STLA,” they added.
If you’re curious, here’s the full financial report. The biggest news is in North America, where increased sales and the sales mix (a lot of trucks) led to a net revenue increase of 32%, which covered up for otherwise flat or slightly negative returns pretty much everywhere else.
This didn’t really lead to a lot of margin, though, which is what the company needs to find in order to show that it’s truly performing and not just squeezing what profits it can out of Americans who get good deals on vans/are willing to spend extra for a V8.
“The second quarter was marked by continued progress, led by North America and supported by important contributions from all other regions,” said CEO Antonio Filosa. “We improved performance across our key financial metrics with Net revenues, AOI and Industrial free cash flows all showing significant gains. With implementation of our FaSTLAne 2030 strategy well underway and this year’s exciting new product launches on time and on track, we remain confident of delivering our 2026 financial guidance.”
After pursuing an incomplete EV strategy, I think Stellantis has a decent plan for the future. It’ll take some time, though, and some investment, but I also think it’s telling that the company has yet to really be able to find any traction at the affordable end of things in North America,
As Cox Automotive’s senior economist Charlie Chesbrough pointed out this week, that’s sort of the larger market story in general:
July sales are holding up despite significant economic uncertainty. Stubbornly high gas prices – with no relief in sight – and historically weak consumer confidence have not discouraged new-vehicle buyers, as might be expected. The market today is being driven by more affluent buyers, so they may be less impacted by inflationary pressures and economic uncertainty. If the economy and stock market can maintain their current growing but volatile path, vehicle sales will likely follow.”
Stellantis has plans to make more affordable cars, but in the interim squeezing profits out of the higher end of buyers is seemingly the only way to secure any profits at all.
Carvana Is Also Struggling With Margin Growth
With the new car market generally skewing towards those with the money to afford higher payments, there are still plenty of options for buyers who can’t stretch to spend $1,000 a month. Some buyers are downsizing, and the subcompact crossover and mid-size car segments were the fastest growing in July.
Another option for buyers is to go used, and Carvana has absorbed a lot of that demand. What Carvan hasn’t been able to do, though, is expand its margins as it increases revenue.
The online auto retailer brought in a record $769 million in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in the second quarter, the company said in a statement. That’s barely ahead of the $766 million average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Gross profit per unit also declined, an indication that reaping earnings from its growing business is becoming harder work at a time when industrywide used-car sales slowed.
This fits into the larger picture I’ve been seeing in Q2 filings. The economy feels uncertain, but it’s not yet resulting in a big drop in sales or even profits as some automakers manage to squeeze margin out of buyers who feel secure. Anyone who has to make money from buyers who don’t necessarily feel as flush are still seeing demand, but that demand isn’t able to drive huge profits.
I do think some automaker is going to crack an affordable vehicle that makes decent margins, and they will be rewarded for it.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
We had two big losses in the music world this week, with the death of both Kavinsky and Glen Hansard. Due to his work on the soundtrack for the film Drive, I’m going to start with Kavinsky and “Nightcall.” What a jam. RIP.
The Big Question
How do you personally feel about the economy? Secure? Insecure? Do you not think about it at all?
Top Photo: Ferrari
My personal reality is a grain in the macro. Everybody who has an industry to be employed in is lucky. Don’t take it for granted. I did for ages, and am dealing with the consequences. Not good. Enshittification has a huge overreach.
The economy seems fine but very shaky. I think there are a lot of issues that have been more or less wallpapered over by massive AI spending on everything. I think if/when that spending starts to slow significantly the broader economy may start to have a bad time. The market has already stated to feel these jitters for the past few weeks despite spending staying high. Will be interesting to see how this all shakes out
TBQ: I feel fine about it and pretty much secure. That’s not to say the economy is good or not good, though. I try not to get uptight about whatever the media or rich folk (same thing) are wailing about. I can’t significantly change any of that so I just focus on keeping my stuff in order to make the best I can out of whatever is going on. So far, that strategy has worked out for the tail of the dot-com bubble, the 2008 GFC, whatever various wars and whatnot have occurred, etc.
Live within my means, learn things to improve work and home life, save for the future. Keep on keeping on. It’s the boring path but it works.
Attempt to live within your means, don’t worry about what the neighbors have or don’t have. There is nobody keeping score. Spend your money and time on what brings you and the family joy.
I heard the stock market described as a graph of rich people’s feelings.
It’s completely ungrounded in reality, just a house of cards.
I realized that early in during covid, there was a news story about how unemployment passed 10%, meanwhile the ticker at the bottom was about the DOW hitting a new record high.
That seems pretty emblematic of our economy, as long as the rich people are doing well, everything is just peachy.
The company I work for went from private to public and I question if it was the correct move. The market always demands MORE. Nevermind that we have stable market share and margins. Nevermind that growth was organic and profit was reinvested into the business. The market is like Veruca Salt, “I want it now!!!’
Yeah, I wonder this too. When is enough enough? My company is demanding higher margins despite higher costs and competition and I’ve told senior management that frankly we’re getting greedy and we should be extremely happy with the margins and growth we’ve already had. My opinion means squat but at least they heard it.
I see a shift in meeting our business units needs to catering to our investors. I’m a senior engineer at the corporate level, so I see a lot, but have zero actual influence.
I am seeing Backlogs go down, and sales reducing margins to fill the backlogs, though how much that is working is to be seen. this along with continuous labor cost increases to keep the good help we have through raises and wage adjustments. All of this while insurance premiums increase and coverage decreases.
Growth cannot be infinite. No matter how hard you try, you can’t hammer this into the business world’s brains.
Right now, it very much is the playground of the rich.
What the fuck Kavinsky died??
Everyone predicted that Ferrari would sell every Luce immediately, because that’s how Ferrari allows you to then buy the rarer cars you really want. And rich people gladly play the game so they can feel special.
The economy is propped up on copium and disreality. I hope the AI bubble pops sooner than later so that some sham IPOs don’t take down too many pensions or 401ks. Too bad SpaceX got in before that happens.
I was just thinking this, isn’t it well known that Ferrari makes people buy certain models to be able to buy the cars people really want later on?
My 401k got wiped out in ’08 when I was a lot younger… I see the coming reckoning as being even worse. I’m considering moving things to bonds in the short term to cut losses. Timing is always the question.
I did that in 2008, got things moved over after 3 days of record drops. the trick was to move it all back over on the actual upswing. otherwise if you wait long enough it mostly just goes back to where it was.
Bingo. I’m good now, but I was just over 30 back then. I’m now in a position where losses hit a lot harder and time is ticking. TBH, I don’t want to do this forever. I want to ENJOY my mid-life.
Timing the market almost never works out in your favor. If there’s a big drop, the best thing you can do is nothing, especially early in your career when you won’t need the money for 30+ years. In fact, big drops are a perfect time to be buying because you’re getting it at a discount, and when the market eventually recovers you make more.
As you get closer to retirement you should adjust your asset mix, but that should happen regardless of what’s going on in the market.
worked in 2008-2009 for me, but yeah, it almost never works for people.
Am I reading this correctly that Carvana made more profit than Stellantis, $739M to $336M?
I also wonder what Ferrari’s profit margin is on vehicles.
I’ve heard that to have a part on a Ferrari F1 car, you pay them, instead of them paying you. Quite the brand monetization to have suppliers paying to be part of the vehicle, no wonder they make money on motorsports.
TBQ – The economy right now is “fine”. Not bad, not good. Lots of room for improvement but it will get worse. Once the energy crisis fully hits because of the war in Iran, it will go downhill fast. I doubt we will avoid a recession or depression because of how long Middle East energy products have been in restricted supply. I hope the AI bubble doesn’t pop at the same time.
My family thinks I’m Nostradamus because I electrified everything in my house over the past few years, switched to EVs and installed a solar system with enough output to cover all of it. We will be immune from the direct impacts but hit hard like everyone else when general inflation hits.
So many solar suppliers seem shady as F***. not to mention that I also would need to invest in a new roof for $xxxxx. That’s a hard pill to swallow without the subsidies and credits.
Many solar salespeople were selling loans instead of solar systems when the tax credit existed. If you want to go down a path of rage, look up “solar loan dealer fees”. It was hard to find a company that was just selling solar.
Yeah, when I NEED a new roof I will almost certainly add solar.
Look for an independent solar guy / company. The systems themselves for most people are normally $7k or less in materials with $1k to $2k for an installer. The solar company’s basically double the price finance it for 20 years and take all the upside. Just another form of enshitification people were buying. They are basically the vinyl window people from the 80s.
I’d like to see average loan length for a Stellantis vehicle as compared against, say, a Ford, Toyota, Hyundai, or Honda – or Nissan.
I’d like to have data to support or break preconceived notions.
I work in a non for profit. I haven’t seen a raise that touched cost of living in 8 years. Last year was 1%, the year before was 1.5% but there are people in the organization making a million a year. We rely on federal money as a part of the work, so that cut a huge hole in us last year and this year. Over all the economy hits us about 2 years ager everyone else, but the years from covid to now have had no rebound due to mostly government nonsense and impossible to plan for issues. We will be on better footing in a couple of years, but it will take time to reach all the way down to me. On paper we are poorer than last year every year.
Personally, our family will be fine. I don’t invest other than retirement at work that is 25 or 30 years away. My wife has a pension, so no change there. We don’t have high bills, we don’t have kids, we don’t have need of a new car for 5 more years probably, and I will clear my student loans next year. We live like our grandparents did or their parents did financially. I save, I don’t invest. I buy to own not to have an asset. I take care of the things I have and I make things last. I graduated high school into 9/11 college straight into a recession, got my career in 2016 right as the culture broke, and was promoted in 2019 right before the world shut down. My who life leadership has been a joke and broken. I have never lived in a US that wasn’t poisoned by Reganomics. The die was cast for all this trash before I even first got an allowance, so I do my best to just keep my finances out of the nonsense as much as I can. At this point even my 401k is none of my concern. That not real money until I need it, and I don’t manage it anyway. Up or down means very little when you can’t use it anyway.
Man, I feel all that. I’m right with you on the 401K. I’m tired of hearing about how well the stock market is going when people can’t afford gas or groceries. To me my 401K is monopoly money until the moment I’m 59.5 and can withdraw without early penalty. There’s a lot of years between now and then, and I fully expect it to be decimated when the AI bubble bursts and/or when the global depression hits. A lot of people Ik now lots a lot of money on 2008 in thier retirement, I’m sure we’ll experience that a few more times before we’re ready to retire.
My GF jokes her retirement plan is Smith & Wesson, mine is to take up winter hiking on Mt. Washington.
Damn that’s bleak but I feel it. I think based on the timelines you and I are about the same age and the last 20ish years have felt like we’ve jumped from one rug pull to another.
I came into starting a career a little later yet, with my first job that offered a 401k in 2019. Now I finally have a “good job” and I contribute enough to max out my employer contribution plus a few percent for catch up, put it in what seemed like the best funds and now ignore it and put a little extra recurring investment in an index fund for rainy days. My wife drives a low mileage but scraped up 10 year old car we bought from a friend’s grandma, I’m nursing a 20 year old car that’s high mileage and creaky but kind of fun. I just bought the parts to refresh our grill rather than buy a new one. A kid came by the house the other day to sell driveway cleaning and I was like yeah I’ll do that myself. And he was like what about getting up and cleaning your roof and gutters that’s dangerous and I’m like already did it. He was like wow you do everything and I’m just I gotta DIY what I can to save for the stuff I can’t.
I was lucky enough to have my parents chip in to help with the downpayment on our house, but when I talk to Gen Z co-workers I realize how lucky even I am because that dream seems completely out of reach to them. Even then I fear we bought right as prices plateaued and should the major recession comes that it feels like we’re due for, we’ll be left holding the bag and stuck in an old fixer neither of us would love even if it was perfect. And the long term fallout from reaganomics will likely have nothing on the damage trumpenomics will do. But you know could be worse.
This is not a good thing. If you put $10000 in the S&P in 2016 (which I’m using as a round number, I realize that might not be realistic early in your career), it would be worth over $38000 today, if you did nothing else in the meantime. Even if the market drops by 50%, which doesn’t feel unlikely right now, you’re still essentially double what you put in 10 years ago.
Meanwhile, if you put that $10000 in savings, you’re looking at maybe $13000, if you’re optimistic with the savings interest rates. Using my actual bank’s rate it’s less than $11000.
I’m not saying the system is good or right. It’s not. But if you choose not to take what the system does give you then it’s going to make your life harder than it needs to be.
I thought the economy should have crashed 10 years ago so my opinion ain’t worth shit.
I also have a personal grievance with Carvana after they offered only $800 for my Fiesta ST. Will never consider that company after such an insulting offer.
I won’t use Carvana after all the horror stories about titles and things, but I do sometimes look at their pricing out of curiosity and it is all over the place. They’ll price the most common vehicles well over what anyone else is charging and they’ll have wild deals on harder-to-find stuff. I’m pretty sure they rely on an entirely automated pricing algorithm that they didn’t program to mitigate swings or compensate for outliers or lacking data. I’ve wondered if it could be gamed by finding an uncommon car and getting one listed somewhere they scrape for a wildly high price before selling to them.
4 months ago i bought super low mileage nissan frontier for $26k. I was tempted to sell it since I got a work truck coming. When i did the online form they offered me $23.5k. I was pretty shocked. I figured they would offer $18k or something ridiculous.
They seem to offer a lot of money for trucks. Coworkers S10 that is twice as old as my Fiesta was worth more than double to them.
Algorithm says pickups sell. So they give more money for pickups. They must always trust the algorithm.
I honestly don’t know what to feel about the economy, but it is hard to be enthusiastic. I’ve long observed that value seems to be created by smoke and mirrors, and tiny bits of reality encroaching can send the whole house of cards crashing down. It will be interesting to see how the global economy weathers the unfolding petroleum crisis, but I can’t think shortages in fuel and various petroleum-based products will do us any good. I’ll just say I’m glad I own a BEV, even if its range sucks. We need wise leaders (unlikely), long-term thinking (very unlikely), and affordable cars (unlikely).
I benchmarked a Ferrari F360 for a Lotus project once. The engine was gorgeous, but the chassis was just a bunch of aluminium box section welded together.
Compared to the extruded and bonded Lotus chassis you could clearly see why one of the companies made a loss and the other a profit. And that’s before you factor in the huge difference in sales price.
wow I’d read this was true of some of the older Ferraris, iirc some youtuber was tearing down a 308 and shocked at the ugly booger welds holding the frame together, but wasn’t expecting that would still be the case by the time of the 360.
Enzo himself said that when you buy a Ferrari, you’re buying the engine; the rest is free. (Or words to that effect)
I got my 3% raise this year for my excellent performance. Glad to hear that recently the inflation was around 33%. So I basically got a pay demotion for showing up, not using a single sick day and keeping all my accounts happy with the corporation.
If wages were actually keeping pace with the bogus inflation, we’d all be doing so much better. Since you asked, I’d say we are entering a digitally controlled hellscape where nothing can be repaired, stuff breaks often because it’s designed worse on purpose and we need to subscribe (rent) almost everything in our daily lives. All while paying more than every other developed country for healthcare that is expensive instead of free or cheap. The quality isn’t there either.
I’m buying old cars from now on. New cars can swipe their screens on my ass.
2.8% for me this year. Oh, and my job duties escalated to legitimately unsustainable levels too. I hate it here.
Edit: inb4 V10omous tries to tell us we’re all wrong again.
Reality will be what it is and isn’t, and people will feel about it how they do.
Divorcing personal circumstances from macro trends is what I wish more were capable of, but alas.
I’m not going to fight this fight today.
Sound like the same as me. I think I got like 3.2% or something like that after my raise got cut in half last year due to a bad year. But funny thing is last year they gave out 102% of their annual incentive and this year only like 32%. They also furloughed us last summer. So that means all the big wigs still got hundreds of thousands or millions in bonuses while we got scraps and furloughed. Woo corporations are awesome!
Also same for me with the responsibilities my level/title is the same as a blue collar tech but I trained and now work with Engineer seniors. The work I do is that of a level higher then that of the guys I trained. Supposedly they say I will get promoted possibly this year but not holding my breath.
I totally get it and ask myself why I keep doing it. Then I remember that our family needs the healthcare plan. That’s the only reason I show up each morning. I could get paid terribly at other jobs that are far more enjoyable. I am the sole person for the corporation in the state of Maine and yet they won’t pay me the same as the lead guys in other states even though I do all the duties of them, but without the tenure.
These stagnated wages are really getting out of hand. I wonder if we’ll see an emergence of DIY’ers or even businesses converting a bunch of the electronic junk to analogue in the future, just to keep things running affordably. It’ll be a Mad Max reality. Can’t wait.
100% this, my job now pays roughly the same it would have in 2019, meanwhile the car I wanted then has gone up $10K, the cost of a cup of coffee has doubled and gas has gone up $2/gallon.
Not to mention housing. I had a plan that had me buying a house in 2022, then 2020 happened and everything doubled.
Oh yeah, our fixer upper house cost $200K+ more in 2024 than what the previous owners paid for it in 2016, and it would’ve been worse if they’d actually taken care of it or fixed anything the right way, that’s all money being vacuumed out of our pocket every month with no added benefit on our end
Hear Hear! When these experts discuss the cost of something from 20 years ago, as adjusted for inflation, or the reverse of that they do not correlate that with wages. How nice that if I adjust that 50k car for inflation compared to 2010 its really 30k? So please correlate that with purchasing power of your current wages versus 2010. My affordability guess is the percentage of your gross going to fund that new car today is greater than it would have been in 2010. So inflation everywhere in what you purchase and stagflation isn what you earn. Now that is a winning combination eh? /s
2010 avg. 41,000. avg car cost 30,000, 73%
2010 mean 49,000. avg cost 30,000, 61%
2026 avg 65,000 cost 50,000. 77%
2026 mean 67000. cost 50,000 75%
check those spreads…
2.0 for me, and that’s after I took over a laid off coworker’s responsibilities in addition to my own. I was livid.
There’s been a mass exodus from this place over the past year, but that seems to be the goal as they never replace anyone.
MBA logic
We must all work at the same place
I thought Saudis already owned Lucid
Yeah, but they’re buying even more of it. They already owned around 60%, so this just feels like they expect it to start to pop off (and, considering the dip when they were rumored to be considering bankruptcy, perhaps a way to both gain from that and show they still have faith in the company)..
TBQ: I’m in great shape as long as I don’t lose my job. If I do, I extremely worried about finding another that comes close to my current pay.
That’s my personal economy. The economy at large? Nah, that thing is messed up. I’m glad I don’t have kids because they would never be able to buy a house.
“How do you personally feel about the economy?”
I feel OK but missing the O.
Time for a little blue pill?
K
The economy is cyclical and I am frankly astounded we haven’t had a recession through the COVID “Bidenflation” or the Tariff, Iran war, government in disarray Trumpflation. When the AI bubble pops, watch out.
How do you personally feel about the economy?’
Not great. I’m in a curious sector that doesn’t generally respond in tandem with the economic trends, but the degree of malevolence, childish incompetence, and outright corruption from our corporate and government leaders is frightening.
I wonder how many of those gas-hog RAM buyers complained about post-COVID gas prices and put “the economy” at the top of their 2024 voting priority list while giving the WH to the guy directly responsible for today’s problems.
I imagine them sitting in a darkened room, tearfully munching on the “I did that” stickers of Biden that they used to put on the gas pumps.
I wish they were crying somewhere. They should be, but they’ve got no self-awareness and have already employed the Cognitive Dissonance Diversion Field by regurgitating the lie that we’d all be nuclear ash by now if Doctor Jesus hadn’t bravely acted to destroy the impending nuclear weapon that we were told was totally obliterated last year. So it’s totally worth the economic damage and besides,
What about Biden
What about Biden
What about Hillary’s server
What about Obama
What about Biden
This makes me so angry. Obama had an international deal with Iran that allowed inspectors to come-in for verification. Trump threw it out. After he launched his war in Iran and killed their leader he’ll never get a better deal.
I saw an article on CNBC today about how the farmer’s were losing faith that Trump was going to create a farming renaissance. Were they not paying attention when Trump fragged the farmers during his first term? This time Trump is not up for re-election so why should he give a flying fig about farming issues. That article expressly said the Trump administration “blamed Biden” for not opening up more markets during his term.
Trump spins the wheel is misfortune to determine what country and random tariff he is going to impose today. Farmers lose out on markets, pay more for fuel and fertilizer, and Trump laughs all the way to the bank. Meanwhile Congress sits around with their thumb up their ass conceding their authority to the President to let him do whatever the F he wants.
Regarding the economy, I just saw a commercial for Eggo Waffles bragging about how they are only 40¢ a pop, which tells me that we are barreling towards a depression
If my maths are right I think one can whip up a batch of 4-8 waffles using maybe a half dollar’s worth of ingredients based on the prices of $8/#25 sack of flour at Costco and $1/dz eggs at my local grocery store (the most expensive ingredients). Those are consumer retail prices which is probably much more than what it costs to make an Eggo. It certainly makes a much better, heartier waffle than an Eggo.
So I dunno if paying several times that for an inferior Eggo is really much of a bellweather.
Now if you want to turn those homemade waffles into something really amazeballs pick up a Costco chicken with that sack of flour and serve it with the waffles. I like to pressure cook the chicken for 25 minutes as per Chris Young’s instructions on how to make a Michelin restaurant level stock, but instead of throwing out the now flavorless meat I shred the meat, turn that stock into gravy by whisking in a bit of flour into the stock (it combines with the chicken fat to make a roux) then mix the gravy with the shredded meat to ladle over the waffles. That’s dinner for four for about $6, maybe a bit more with the homemade coleslaw or collards.
EDIT: Forgot to mention the bones, skin, and other chicken leftovers can be pureed into pet food. Pressure cooking softens the bones so much they can be crushed just by pinching them. So throw it all into a blender, maybe throw in a few veggie scraps and Fluffy can have dinner too. And there’s almost no waste.
Don’t forget the sourdough to put in the homemade waffles, that nicely grows itself with just some flour and water additions and makes them delicious.
Absolutely! Waffles are my favorite use for sourdough discard.
Second favorite? Drain cleaner.
I’m skimming and mis-parsed this sentence at first. I was very concerned that your second-favorite thing to add to waffles was drain cleaner.
I very occasionally pour very diluted starter down my sink to refresh the starch eating cultures down there. There are a lot of warnings online that starter can dry out and clog the pipes so this is definitely a YMMV.
I very occasionally also pour industrial enzyme cleaner down there too which has a different culture so maybe it all works together? I dunno but so far so good.
Damn! You could have told me that before I ate Fluffy!!
Ironically Fuffy tasted like chicken.
The “cereal for dinner” commercials are equally ominous and damning
I mean it certainly doesn’t cost $15,000 to paint your new Ferrari one color instead of a different color when you order it; or several thousand dollars to put a big Ferrari badge on the front fenders.
I can’t really do much about the state of the economy, so I try to just make sure I am equipped to weather fluctuations. You never can really tell how things are going to go.
Just had a bunch of stock drop in value because another company in the same sector made record profits, but still not as much as forecasted. As a result, there was a selloff of all sorts of related stocks. Hoping it recovers, but I’m glad I’m not trying to retire on that or something right now.
Tech stocks are crazy with that right now. So crazy how if one company does good or bad that the whole sector can jump or drop 15%+ in a day. Like today all the major companies are up like 10%+ after bleeding over the last month.
Yeah, I work in tech and some of my compensation is in stock, so definitely have more exposure to that than I would if I were investing entirely independently. So far today, up 15% again after a 30-35% drop over the past week. Super wild swings, and rarely specific to whatever company causes them.
I’m considering selling a few tranches of my company stock to lock in some gains and build a buffer of liquidity. I’m essentially debt free except for the mortgage.
I definitely do that occasionally. I sometimes regret it (“$450? It’ll never get much higher than that!” Oops, $1200), but the volatility is enough of a stressor that I remind myself none of the gains are ever certain.
Two decades ago I worked for a steel company whose stock fell below $1 a share. Part of me said – I should buy 10,000 shares right now with cash on hand. The other part said – I may need that money to eat and pay bills with in 6 months. There was a definite vibe that each day when we came to work we may find the gate locked. Conservative me won out that day as we had a baby on the way. Flash forward 18 months and stock is back up to $11 or so…
‘Course, I probably would have sold a $2 and been happy.
High stakes gambling
I have done this over the last 2 years to not so much lock in gains but to diversify my holdings.
Nothing fancy on what I bought with the cash, just large index funds.
Needed to get a few eggs in some other baskets.
I’m considering stuffing the cash under the mattress at this point.
Fuck, I am just learning that Kavinsky passed away. This hits me hard. 🙁
Nightcall was legitimately the soundtrack to my life as a young adult. It will forever be one of the best albums for a spooky, late-night drive.
Rest in peace Vincent.
He was one of my synthwave gateway drugs. RIP
In a stock market sense of the economy I feel it is manipulated as hell right now especially with the current admin and Iran war.
As for day to day living I feel like it is worse since COVID I feel like things are super inflated.
It is great to hear about companies laying people off but still making record profits and CEO’s getting tens of millions in bonus checks. Or companies getting tariff refunds but keeping the tariff prices. My conspiracy is that the tariffs were planned with the companies to purposely increase prices and knowing they would get government refunds.
What pisses me off so much about the stock market and it’s ongoing shockingly upwards state, and I think it’s part of why this administration hasn’t been checked more, is this self fulfilling prophecy of “anti-regulation administration is good for business” so everybody invests like crazy. Yet the moment the next Democrat gets elected the stock market will go down as investors brace for the “communist takeover” and whatever bare minimum of regulatory guardrails they actually manage to put in place thus perpetuating the “gop is good for business” line, yet in real terms very little has changed. IDK maybe this is conspiratorial thinking from someone who knows just enough to be dangerous but not sure how else to account for this.
The only people who are playing the stock market game are the rich. 80% of stocks that are traded are owned by the wealthiest 10%. They also have the money to keep winning in spite of the reality of the situation.
if you’re rich already, you’re doing just fine, great even. If you’re not, like us, it’s a completely different world.
Yeh that checks out 🙁
And the wealthy make a lot of money on the market ‘fluctuating’.
buy low sell high
What’s funny to me is that my dad shifted a bunch of his retirement portfolio out of stock when Biden was elected and the market went up…and he said something along the lines of “I should have known they wouldn’t let it actually go down.” Meanwhile, he lost a bunch of value during the tariff swings and never complained, even though I think it’s why he is not yet retired.
Even if they see GOP losses and Dem gains, they say the opposite happens.
Ugh for real, I’ve mostly stopped talking to my dad about this kinda stuff but I could see him saying something similar.
As I said to a friend once who also grew up conservative “I don’t know how to argue with someone who has deluded themselves into voting against their own self interest and worse votes against a better future for their children”
“Some men just want to see the world burn.”
Why do so many people insist on selling low and buying high in order to lock in their losses?
If you just kept buying a bit at a time, steadily when it dropped you would be in great shape, even with the shit-show of our current seesawing market.
But it seems like it happens with regularity at each and every market swing.
For all of these people, low cost, broad-based index funds. Left alone forever until needed. Add as much as you can every month as you go. You’ll be fine.
I have some friends that are in their mid-30s (I am in my early/mid-50s for reference). They were complaining that their generation has seen the highest percentages of down markets in their lifetime. It is true what with the doldrums of the aughts and the housing crisis of 2009 etc. But they have also had the largest percentage of buying opportunities that would lead to great wealth creation in their later adult years.
Very few took or are taking advantage of it. When I mentioned to my friends they said that their generation lacked the wealth and resources to invest. It sounded like their POV was that you have to start with money to make money but most every person in this country that reaches retirement, just a little at a time, consistently through your working life will yield great results.
Just don’t try to invest in individual stocks if you’re always afraid of a crash. That’s why they made the index funds.
No, you’re spot on. I used to work in the financial sector and it’s just money laundering scheme at this point. That’s why they couldn’t stop things like crypto or NFTs from entering the market because there’s already products in the market that are just as absurd
ugh…and now you’ve got all this predictions market nonsense which anyone can see is pure unvarnished gambling without even the sheen of actual business investment to it as well as being even more nakedly open to corruption.
Wall Street is now fully disconnected from Main Street. Every local merchant, mechanic, contractor, etc in my area is hurting, I support as best I can in CASH. Wall Street somehow is convinced that growth will go on forever at ever increasing rates, the very definition of a cancer….
And AI techbros bragging about all the jobs they’re going to eliminate.