At Any Rate

What a delight… a rare pleasure… to wake up to THIS:

The reason, of course, is something any resident in Palo Alto could tell you… THERE ARE TOO MANY JOBS BEGGING TO BE FILLED!

I’m serious. I saw this EXACT same thing happen in 2000. The employees around here suck. Why do they suck? Because they can. Low-level service employees are desperately needed around here, and they will hire ANY person at ANYprice just to fill the spot.

Want to know what they’re paying you to shove burritos in a bag at Chipotle? $17 per hour. How do I know? Because of the huge banner outside, which is no different than the hundreds of other banners from all the retail shops, fast food joints, and other places that desperately need people.

So… the unemployment rate is effectively 0%, the quality of the employees stinks, and their wages keep going up. And so there’s no doubt interest rates are just going to keep rocking higher, because the wage growth is getting, shall we say, inflation-y. So the downtrend we’re finally seeing in equities is no accident.