I try not to participate in these threads anymore, but I am going to do this once without making it political, because it really isn’t.
Look everyone, let’s be real, recession or not, the reality on the ground is that everything is more expensive and of a worse quality, and I think people are starting to reach a point where they can’t laugh it off anymore.
Everyone I say this to agrees and then laughs about it, but at some point, people will just feel dejected and have enough. I took my dad and sister for strip-mall Long Island Italian last week and I paid like $120. This is a place I’ve been going to since I was a child in middle school and it feels like it doubled in no-time. I go to the grocery store to top up and buy like 4 things and it’s $50. If I step outside of my house on any given day, I should just consider myself $100 lighter, I got a haircut, got lunch, topped up on gas, there goes $100. There is hardly any value anymore in almost anything you purchase, food quality is low, quality of soft and hard goods are down, whilst being more expensive, let’s be real, it’s a crappy time and it probably started or at least was rapidly accelerated with COVID, the price of damn near everything went up, we were told it was temporary due to supply chain disruptions, but it wasn’t temporary, and then it got even more expensive on top of that base. The idea that inflation is just a few points here and there is a laughable joke, there are things in my daily life that are easily 2x as expensive as there were just 5-6 years ago.
And don’t get me started on labor costs… you look for any home improvement project, the going market rate is $70/hr for (often questionable) handyman work. Unbelievable.
I mean yeah, cost of goods goes up, so cost of labor goes up because labor is now spending $120 for dinner on a family of 3, and it just continues in this never-ending cycle until eventually it’s $75 for a pizza.
Ok and they prob spent at least 15 min driving there, possibly more given NJ traffic. Idk not sure that is a bad deal. Think before these things were largely undervalued and we are catching up to the true costs.
What is the guy supposed to charge for spending a minimum of an hour plus bringing a truck and tools, 100 bucks? Come on
OP also failed to point out that EV sales absolutely boomed in the months prior to the 7500 going away. We pulled forward thousands upon thousands of cars worth of demand over a matter of months. We did the same with the “Liberation Day” trash.
We’re now also in a situation where most manufacturers are pretty much out of ev inventory, or have a handful left that are going to sit for some time (think new taycans, IXs, etc). My hyundai store has no more ioniq5 or 6, audi has no more a6/q6/GT, lexus is out of RZ, etc. Everyone sold out. So it’s not a surprise that ev sales plummeted in October. There wasn’t anything to sell.
Further, thanks to the effect of tariffs, msrps for both imported and domestic cars have shot up. Purchasing a car is now no longer feasible for many consumers.
That said, to ignore the warning signs being flashed by the economy is foolish. The stock market going up is not a leading indicator. It’s being driven by ~10 megacaps moving money back and forth to each other while investing in an unproven and nascent technology. It’s more correct to look at cyclical names, consumer staples, restaurants, etc. Those are all bleeding. Why? Because the US consumer is broke and overlevered. There will be a time, likely in the near future, when the dam will break. I’m not saying it’s going to be 2008, but this AI bubble will burst (like all bubbles do), and then maybe those with rose-colored glasses will wake up.
Oh my statement wasn’t about cost directly, but in general about how expensive things have gotten. I understand having to pay for fuel, transport, insurance (health/work), and livable wages for a HCOL area. Just crazy how expensive things have/gotten. I would pay 180 bucks for a similar service in Iowa-which is EXPENSIVE for living standards here.
Feel like your takes are very reasonable and I largely agree but as I’d guess you agree that doesn’t mean it’ll burst tomorrow. It may be another year or two, we are starting to see debt financing the AI capex instead of earnings which is usually a later stage bubble thing.
I think some ppl think it’s going to blow up tomorrow though which is unlikely IMO. It can run for quite a while more.
Burry was years early on the CDO and nearly bled to death as a result, and he has called numerous bubbles since then. Not sure his overall track record has been great
The main problem with AI is that it either is a bubble about to pop and f* the stock market OR it isn’t a bubble and is about to f* a major portion of the workforce.
In 1900 something like 60% of Americans earned their living from farming. Then the tractor came along and mechanized farming. Today that 60% is down to 2%. Productivity gains aren’t a bad thing.
That sounds too good to be true. Nobody I know pays less than $45-50 plus tip = $60+ for a haircut. Lunch is $25 per person on the low end. Gas is $3 or close to $4 for 91+
I get my haricut from a cranky old Italian guy (actually from Italy). $25 and he does a great job.
My wife on the other hand pays $250 LOL. I’m in the wrong business, I should have learned to do highlights. That’s where the money is. Better than dentistry.
People are making the assumption that the AI bubble bursting = no more AI. That’s silly. The .com bust didn’t mean the end of the internet. It just allowed for consolidation and ushered in giants like Google. In the 1910s and 20s there were 100s of car companies. Eventually they all went away or were bought up by the Big 3. Didn’t mean it was the end of cars.
Right now there are thousands of AI companies that are going to disappear. Some of the are public and will crash and burn. This is a given. But when this shakeup happens, the survivors will be multi trillion dollar companies.
AI isn’t going anywhere. Get on board with it and make money. Or get left behind. Your choice.
