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I think there's more to it than that, Bozo.

Three key changes since the 50's: 

  • Women in the workforce increased the supply of workers.
  • We've shifted our manufacturing to other countries and essential become a service economy. 
  • Increased immigration of low wage, unskilled workers

In my opinion, those three things have had a major impact on the wage gap.

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13 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

I think there's more to it than that, Bozo.

Three key changes since the 50's: 

  • Women in the workforce increased the supply of workers.
  • We've shifted our manufacturing to other countries and essential become a service economy. 
  • Increased immigration of low wage, unskilled workers

In my opinion, those three things have had a major impact on the wage gap.

Lol, so it's women and immigrants fault - not the wildly diverging profitability and employee pay basis since Reaganomics? Employee wages have stagnated, especially relative to employee productivity. Wages have stagnated because shareholders demand constant and unrelenting quarterly growth - and worker wages are just another cost to be cut if you ask an MBA who's going to be at a new job in 2 years after their golden handcuffs mature

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31 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

I think there's more to it than that, Bozo.

Three key changes since the 50's: 

  • Women in the workforce increased the supply of workers.
  • We've shifted our manufacturing to other countries and essential become a service economy. 
  • Increased immigration of low wage, unskilled workers

In my opinion, those three things have had a major impact on the wage gap.

I’ve written extensively about the first two bullets and basically agree*, but I would argue the third a bit because it’s really more an issue that tightening the border post 9/11 ended circularity and led to more immigrants staying here and having kids rather than going home seasonally. 
 

That said- the two contributing factors to the first bullet (which I agree is a huge deal) were the wide legalization of the no fault divorce in the early 70’s (a good thing) and changes to the way tax code that increased incentives to widen income inequality between workers and senior management. And union busting was a major contributor to offshoring manufacturing too, that played as much a role as NAFTA.

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7 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

That said- the two contributing factors to the first bullet (which I agree is a huge deal) were the wide legalization of the no fault divorce in the early 70’s (a good thing) and changes to the way tax code that increased incentives to widen income inequality between workers and senior management. And union busting was a major contributor to offshoring manufacturing too, that played as much a role as NAFTA.

Good points. I wasn't implying that any of those points were "good or bad" but just they were/are major shifts from the 50's. Certainly tax policy has contributed to the wealth gap. More importantly the pressure (mostly self inflicted) on corporations to think quarter to quarter rather than long term and the subsequent rewards to leadership for increasing stock prices.

I've always been curious about if those in power knew how NAFTA would play out.

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Looks to me like we need another break-away thread (like the stonk & penny stock thread - where did that go anyway), as this has become the economics and social effects of tax policy thread, nttawwt; and I just wanted to come say that  someone (FItch rating svc.) finally had the guts to say the King is wearing no clothes. With interest rates going higher & higher the interest portion of Federal spending will triple/quadruple or even go higher than that, over the next few years.
With JPow focused on inflation and employement, it looks like he and his buddies could be pushing the US spending higher and higher as they we are forced to borrow more and more to make debt service payments. 
As Forrest Gump said, I'm not a smart man but this looks to me like we could be in for a long-time getting fucked in the wallet. 

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1 hour ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Downgrade of US debt by Fitch, the predictable result of near default. 
 

BTC up, however. Don’t shoot the messenger.

Plus, just a roaring rally over the past few months. 

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2 hours ago, bluto said:

Anybody care to explain todays cliff dive?

lower credit rating= higher expected long term rates= higher discount for cashflows in the future= negative impact to equities.  Last time we had this we lost 25% in the Nasdaq and 17% in the S&P 500 in a week.  But this rating downgrade is a fucking joke.

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I think Fitch explained their reasoning pretty well.  Fiscal deterioration, check, down to the wire clown shows on debt ceiling, check, 20 years of deterioration in governance.

 

It points to a bleak trend for the US as ultimately it means money is more expensive to borrow as risk is higher.

 

I can’t believe the first  cut was 12 years ago.  Time flies when you’re having fun.

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3 hours ago, Hefeweizen said:

I think Fitch explained their reasoning pretty well.  Fiscal deterioration, check, down to the wire clown shows on debt ceiling, check, 20 years of deterioration in governance.

 

It points to a bleak trend for the US as ultimately it means money is more expensive to borrow as risk is higher.

 

I can’t believe the first  cut was 12 years ago.  Time flies when you’re having fun.

 

 

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Having a hard time seeing why the absolute credit rating matters at all. Globally it's all relative. As long as the US has more projected strength and stability than everyone else, even if it is a B and everyone else is a C, nothing will actually change in distribution of "money" worldwide.

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5 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Yeah what’s a few more bips on $1.6T, anyway?

Because the 10y moved 400 bips in range over the last few years because of a change in whose rating….?

The narration from Fitch is perfectly valid. Except that story (compounding debt; perpetual budgeting standoff) has been the same for decades. 

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On 8/2/2023 at 5:05 PM, 52-80 said:

If you want free money, short the front month VIX futures. Its at 17.00 right now. 

Will be lower in 2 weeks, if not 1…

And please remember to Like and Subscribe. 

at the open you're up $1250 per contract, so yall owe me lunch money

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On 7/22/2022 at 9:58 AM, Wally Fairway said:

In an effort to be fully transparent the those who try to make some money on the RWIS (reverse wally investment strategy),

I have slowly started to see if my investing can influence one of the best run investment funds in the history of stock market investing. That is right Berkshire Hathaway in now in my crosshairs , I've started buying LEAP calls on BRK.B, the furthest traded date is currently January 19, 2024, both some $350 strikes (around $10) and a few $400 strikes ($3.50). This is a play on the recession ending by the 3Q 2023 and that my favorite nonagenarians find a good place for most of the estimated $100 billion they have in cash (it was $150 but Uncle Warren liked him some Oxy this year). 
FWIW - I picked the $350 strikes because that is below the 52 week (and all-time) high for BRK, but I'll pick some longer expiry dates once they open.
Right now I have just under 0.4% of my portfolio in the non-stonkiest of investments (which is why I'm posting here not there)

Ride the wave fellow surlyites, you know the drill....sell BRK, buy puts, sell me some of your covered calls.
Is there a 2xRWIS fund?

1+ year update - sold my first 1/9/2024 BRK.B $350 call today for $26+, still have 2 of the $350's, 2 of the $360's and 4 of the $400's. I am up over 100% of the $350 & $360 and with today's action the $400's are up 65% today which gets those to down about 45%.
Overall up about 65%, but need to sell into the BRK.B rally, as the options pricing will start to slow as we get nearer the expiration date. I may let 1 or 2 of the options fill and increase my Uncle Warren holdings, but I have a few months to decide on that (still think that Warren or Charlie dying will become a buying opportunity).

Gotta take some profits while you can (if the reverse Wally scheme worked perfectly then everyone would do it)
Current BRK.B option holdings below

Spoiler

image.thumb.png.4e645eadff7c0d01a4fe5846d10a2fe0.png

 

Edited by Wally Fairway
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Lol. Headline to CNN article, linked on Drudge:

"Americans are pulling money out of their 401(k) plans at an alarming rate"
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/08/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals/index.html

Oh noez!

The article: "The number of people who made a hardship withdrawal during the second quarter surged from the first three months of the year to 15,950, an increase of 36% from the second quarter of 2022, according to Bank of America’s analysis of clients’ employee benefits programs, which are comprised of more than 4 million plan participants."

"However, overall employee contributions continued to hold steady for the first half of the year, and a greater share of participants upped their contribution rate than decreased it."

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1 hour ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

Lol. Headline to CNN article, linked on Drudge:

"Americans are pulling money out of their 401(k) plans at an alarming rate"
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/08/economy/401k-hardship-withdrawals/index.html

Oh noez!

The article: "The number of people who made a hardship withdrawal during the second quarter surged from the first three months of the year to 15,950, an increase of 36% from the second quarter of 2022, according to Bank of America’s analysis of clients’ employee benefits programs, which are comprised of more than 4 million plan participants."

"However, overall employee contributions continued to hold steady for the first half of the year, and a greater share of participants upped their contribution rate than decreased it."

 

Oh man, 0.29% of 401K participants had to make a hardship withdrawal, which drastically increased 10bps to 0.39% of participants.  Sound the bells.

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16 hours ago, 52-80 said:

 

Oh man, 0.29% of 401K participants had to make a hardship withdrawal, which drastically increased 10bps to 0.39% of participants.  Sound the bells.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised that that hardships withdrawals are that low. If I had to guess, I would've said around 3-5%. 

 

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17 hours ago, 52-80 said:

 

Oh man, 0.29% of 401K participants had to make a hardship withdrawal, which drastically increased 10bps to 0.39% of participants.  Sound the bells.

Yeah but is more impactful that saying previously 99.71% of participants did not take a hardship withdrawal but that number decreased to 99.64% did not take a hardship withdrawal; which is a 0.07% decrease in the number of people not taking the withdrawal. 
I mean that isn't going to be a news story anywhere.

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