Castanza

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Been following Canadian housing loosely for a few years now ever since my BIL built a beach cottage for ~200k all in then sold it to some guy from Toronto for ~600k barely 3 years later…. A LOT of people up there bemoaning how easy it is to flip houses. When your barber starts talking about real estate flips it’s time to pay attention. https://x.com/jonflynnrestats/status/1697757207574503482?s=46 Follow a few Canadian Relators on Twitter. Any you would suggest?

Buddy has it at a remote cabin in West Virginia and it works great.

Same

Like I said idc so much about the wages. If Ford and GM can afford to pay it and come to an agreement great! Earn as much as you can! It’s more so the tactics (“let’s drag this out for months”)and approach/being out of touch with reality or the broader market of jobs. 82k is what 20k above the National average? Throw in the benefits and pension and who tf are you to demand this? Let’s hold all these other companies hostage or hurt their bottom lines because you have unreasonable demands. Plus most of these jobs are in the Midwest where 70k a year is very good pay to support a family. I just get more upset that people are generally unreasonable. It’s always extremes on both ends. Now public pensions…they really boil my blood but that’s a discussion for a different forum as it’s political in nature.

Typically contracts are every 5 years. This whole current strike is because in 2018 the union agreed to tiered wages where one group earns about half of the other. Likely to avoid losing their jobs. Agree with what Unions have become. At the end of the day idc all that much. It’s a private company. But I’m going to laugh my ass off when these same UAW workers bitch and loan about their now 75k mini vans rolling off lines due to increased capex. Or frankly when the big 3 ship the rest of the jobs abroad. There is never enough in the pot for unions and it’s usually a top down problem. @Spekulatius @stahleyp I like the CEO thing and frankly I think most CEOs should have wages tied to performance. I also think it’s a strawman to say Walmart CEO makes 20m or whatever so we should be making blah blah blah. @Santayana Idk is it skilled labor? Maybe somewhere in between skilled and unskilled. Go watch some videos and most people stand in place for 8 hours screwing together the same door panel one after the other. It’s pattern following at best. Also I don’t believe the engineers are union. They are likely in a separate class similar to management. Typically only the bottom tier are Union. So it’s likely they don’t get the same benefits. But I’m not 100% on this. Also should be noted that many of these local union reps make well north of 150k a year. Bump up the level of representation (regional, national etc.) and you’re talking hundreds of thousands. Curry was making almost 300k….Incentives are bad all around….and this doesn’t account for all the under the table criminal stuff that goes on. I always remember a driver at UPS who ran and win for our local. Well it came with a LOT of perks and the guy changed completely. All of a sudden he was wearing Rolex watches and driving brand new Escalades…expensing lunches and gas etc. these guys are just proxy politicians at the end of the day. Unions are simply about plundering companies nowadays.

+1 at this point what has changed?

Imagine paying assembly line workers the same as your engineering staff… https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/General-Motors-GM-Engineer-Salaries-E279_D_KO18,26.htm @CassiusKing1 I think it’s highly probable. Union is simply out of touch…I’m all for wage growth and better working conditions. But when your arguing for unskilled labor wages higher than most starting engineering positions, nurses, teachers, etc. you’re simple asking too much. Private company do what you want! But I don’t see how it’s sustainable long term. You’re simply pricing yourself out of jobs by asking for top 5% pay for what exactly in return? Welcome to the global economy…US should move on from these bottom barrel manufacturing jobs and get with the times. You want manufacturing here? We’ll move to the skilled market (cough cough TSMC AZ plant)… Different environments call for different solutions.

Not happy with base pay of 82k/yr with best in class benefits and a pension proposal. Unions want 94k/yr with pension and benefits all in a 32hr work week. Sounds like they UAW wants to drag this out for months….could be conjecture and grandstanding. Could these companies even afford to pay this? https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/uaw-poised-to-expand-strike-to-more-auto-factories-98f0a9af?st=06mohmzo2ibvx6e&reflink=article_copyURL_share

Yup I own a small amount of this as well. Payed attention when Kuppy started pounding the table on uranium. At some point the world will wake up and realize it needs nuclear.

AIV, FRPH, PCYO

Yup the ability to take your net worth (or some worth) with you by simply memorizing a 24 word seed phrase is priceless. Anyone who’s lived through a Warzone or major crisis should understand this. Imagine if this existed during WWII and nations stored their wealth in BTC instead of Gold. Hitler would have had a MUCH tougher time finding the war. Those gold reserves and wealth he stole from Europes banks, citizens, Jews etc. would not have been there.

Ratio when I was there was 6 to 1 insiders vs off street hire. 4 years till you hit top pay rate. Worked out well for me and paid for the rest of education. Def wouldn’t want to do it as a career. Every guy there had back surgery, elbow, shoulder, knee you name it. Divorce rate was through the roof.

As someone who’s done it I’d find something else. Hours suck and you don’t start till 8:30-9 so that 10-12hr shift hits worse with the home life. Pay and benefits were great for a normal job. Stress is relative and subjective. During 08-09 every banker and financial advisor from here to Timbuktu was shaking like a dog crapping a peach seed. But those Union drivers say pretty. So stress is different pending the macro environment for sure. But I do get @Gregmal point. I think we share pretty similar frameworks but I’m maybe a bit more risk averse since I paid off my house early. I think Greg is also a bit older than me so probably at different stops on the route; and frankly probably better off/more financially savvy. Now that my monthly cash flow is less intensive I’ve definitely dialed back the savings requirements, intending to make that money work more for me etc. Whatever let’s you sleep at night

Dropping the gold standard also happened in 1971 fwiw

VSCO Adding it to the retailer basket......I like the setup here. It's optically cheap, they have some catalysts on the horizon, holidays is around the corner, and retail spend remains generally strong. @LearningMachine Thanks for the DD and insights on this.

I did just see this with BMW haha but something tells me auto makers will be pushing this very hard the next decade. Especially as we move to more EVs that a much more integrated with software suites. Not going to be a fun world to live in if it’s not kept in check.

If you work in a Union shop and don’t join; life will be a living Hell for you. You’ll get overloaded with work and abused in many ways. After all you have no recourse or representative.

Since the FTC has been so busy as of late “protecting consumers.” What are some things you wish they would target? - Carrier locked cell phones (AT&T) - Subscription services for features in cars (BMW proposed subscription for heated seats)

CLPR, AIV, FRPH

Adds: AIV, PCYO, CLPR, FRPH New positions: O, CROX

Another angle the could be a positive from remote work is a resurgence in small town/city productivity. There is no question that smaller towns have been dying in the US. Late 90’s - 2010’’s really pushed this narrative along as more and more manufacturing left and jobs that required higher education and commanded higher lay moved towards big city centers. This causes massive economic disparities long term. But I do think there is a large amount of people about there who wish they could live in smaller towns but also make good money. Well now we have a solution…and with that solution comes more taxes revenue and consumer/expendable business demand for small towns as higher income earners move in. Will be interesting to see how this plays out over time.

What’s funny about it is everyone I know who is full time wfh said their companies productivity numbers have done nothing but go up. Sad it boils down to nothing but some personal power validation. Gotta have your subjects in office so you can lord over them and feel important parking your Porsche in premium parking spot

Quite a few employers starting to push people back to offices. Wouldn't be surprised to see political pressure on companies to push them back if the CRE market get's bad enough.