This evening I learned that the recession or “hard times” as they’ll soon be known, have not arrived yet. We have not seen the worst of this economic slide. This is coming on good footing. I have my personal financial guru who has his fingers on the pulse of economics. Seriously.
I’m doing this post because Tyson Foods said they will slaughter (or layoff) 1,500 of the 2,400 jobs at their plant in Emporia, KS. That’s a little over 62% of their workforce at the plant. I’d say that Tyson is one of Emporia’s largest employers. What this does is further lend credibility to what my financial bubba told me.
I began to share with him about the housing market and some experiences I had encountered over the past couple of weeks. We talked about how no person should buy a home without selling their current home first. You see those suckers all the time. An empty house that is on the market is a house that will lose money.
In contrast to the experts (even in real estate) who chest pump about how the economy will correct itself by mid year and into the later parts of the year are lying to you. The worst, my adviser stated, have not arrived yet.
He cited a few things that have yet to happen. We’re seeing the beginnings of it now. No one really turns a head when Sprint lays people off. They do more cutting than a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. What got us on this topic about Sprint was the fact that he lost his cell connection. He said his Sprint line always drops a call at a certain stretch of town. I told him that he needs to drop Sprint.
He said, “you might be right. I noticed they let their chief financial guy go….and that’s never a good thing.”
Well, Sprint sucks. That’s all I’ll say. However, when you add their cuts on top of Cerner and H&R Block, KC can’t take much more (somebody tell Clark Hunt that this is the prime time to cut Peterson….no one will notice). Yet, the layoffs are just one “early” indicator that things are heading for the toilet.
My financial insider stated that layoffs haven’t hit like they will be hitting later this year. There will be a lot of people out of work. There will be more homes lost due to no wages. The prices of vehicles will be dropping, or if they refuse to drop those prices, my guru stated to not be surprised if car dealerships start closing up.
Then we got started on the gub’ment freebate check. He said that the government can’t get those checks in the mail fast enough. He likened the freebate to a one-time shot in the arm. He said, “it’s like somebody who is low on energy, so they go out and get a Pepsi…they’ll feel good for a few minutes, but what happens when that buzz goes flat?”
Houses will continue to depreciate. Still, some people are suckers to think they can command top dollar for their house. Sorry, these buyers with good credit scores will wait you out. They’ll wait until it’s in their range. It’s certainly not a seller’s market. Also, what good is $600 or $1,200 going to do long term? Most people have already got their money spent.
Add Tyson Foods in the soon to be long line of companies who can’t deal and need to cut people while they deal with cuts in revenue. To make matters worse, those blood sucking scavengers at Time Warner are planning on charging more for their internet service.
I hope you don’t lose your job. I hope I don’t lose mine.
