If they take $11 billion out of the economy, the effects will be less than pretty. They did and it isn’t pretty. As of November 18, 120,000 tech workers had been laid off in 2022. And the layoffs continue along with hiring freezes. Marc Weil, who has worked in tech since 2010, and one of […]

They took a market served by check-cashing and payday loan stores and offered credit to their customers. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) began as a way to reach an underserved or ill-served $3.9 trillion credit market seen as a giant money-making opportunity. Making money hasn’t been part of the planned equation though. So far so […]

A boss I had once gave away his lies with a gulp in his throat immediately before and after the lie exited his mouth. Once I heard the gulp, I dismissed any and everything that had followed or preceded it. Our last landlord, the one we had 40-plus years ago, gave herself away with the […]

“Deadbeat! Just wait until I put you on the deadbeat list that I’m going to show everybody! My law firm and I will hound you forever! I’m going to have you arrested, too! Did you get that court order I sent you? Just wait, deadbeat!” There might have been a time when it was legal […]

You can’t do just one thing. You can’t have crippling inflation, expect it to have no effect on the economy, expect consumers to keep consuming as they had been, and expect businesses to keep rolling in profits. Now it shows. People spend more when they have more money and access to credit. People save more […]

Warren Buffet said, “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.” In 2008, with other people’s fear in abundance, he bought $5 billion in “perpetual preferred shares in Goldman Sachs” that paid him 10 percent interest and had the option to buy additional Goldman Sachs shares. Goldman had the option […]

Retail sales beat inflation for the fourth straight month the Commerce Department reported in April. The gleeful report is wishing thinking at best, misleads at worse and misinforms at worst. Sure retail sales are higher than last year, but why they are makes for a worrisome picture. For example, Walmart reported that customers favor lower-cost […]

“There’s a sucker born every minute,” PT Barnum didn’t say it, and we might be suckers for believing that he did say it. Ryo Mac wrote, “It seems that everyone believes things a little too eagerly, especially if they want to believe it.” It was likely a banker named David Hannum from Syracuse, New York […]

Fraught with possibilities for fraud is information on the rental application of a gig worker, especially one type of gig worker. With their inability to provide much credible information, it can be difficult for us to be confident about their qualifications. Many exist in a kind of an employment shadow world on the edge of […]

Amy got rejected. The screener took one look at her Facebook page and said “no way.” Her page displayed a video of a wild party complete with trashing an apartment, people passed out, noise complaints, and police coming. Trouble was, Amy wasn’t even at that party and only knew a couple of people who were. […]