Yes, This Time It Is Different: But Not In Good Ways

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
Yes, this time it's different: all the foundations of a healthy economy are crumbling into quicksand.
Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,
Yes, this time it's different: all the foundations of a healthy economy are crumbling into quicksand.
Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,
Public pensions are a financial time bomb... and I see two ways to profit from the explosion.
In the US, unfunded public pension liabilities have surpassed $5 trillion. And that’s during an epic stock and bond market bubble.
Predictably, the government’s go-to “solution” is already making matters worse.
At first, distressed states simply increase taxes.
We've frequently argued that public pension underfundings are perhaps the greatest threat to the long-term economic outlook of the United States, if not the globe. With aggregate underfunding levels of $5-$8 trillion, depending on what discount rate your local politicians decide to pull out of thin air, the forthcoming pension crisis will be too large for even the very generous American taxpayer to cover.
After nearly two years of being rangebound between 5.5 and 6 million, the BLS's JOLTS report - Janet Yellen's favorite labor market indicator- showed that the recent surge in job openings which was observed first last month, when job openings smashed expectations above 6 million for the first time ever, continued in July when the total number of job opening rose to a new record high of 6.170 million, an increase of 54k on the month, and well above the 6.0mm consensus forecast.
When Raef Lawson filed his $586.56 lawsuit in San Francisco he probably didn't realize he could potentially end up disrupting the entire 'gig economy' that subsidizes a plethora of Silicon Valley tech giants from Uber to DoorDash, but that could very well end up being the outcome.
As Yahoo points out today, Lawson used to be a delivery driver for GrubHub but now he finds himself at the epicenter of an ongoing legal battle over whether 1099 contractors working for firms GrubHub and Uber should really be counted at employees rather than independent contractors.