Tyrone Wiggum

♫He's a maniac, MANIAC on scaffold And he's building like he's never built before♫

You have no idea idea how much cheaper it is, and how quickly the ROI pays for itself. In the next ten years, millions if not tens of millions of jobs are gonna disappear due to automation; without betraying a confidence, I know a leader in the conversion from people to robots, and given how well their experience has gone, it's gonna come on like a hurricane wherever it can be done. Is that good? I still can't buy gas in New Jersey without staying in my car, so dunno, but if I need nothing more than a security guard at Walmart and Whole Foods and Home Despot, or not even that just a kiosk at Panera and McDowells and Chipotle, why do I need humans if my only objective is shareholder value? Also, just wait till the robotic cooks and dishwashers and stockers and pharmacy techs come on line en masse; it's already here, you just haven't heard about it, to say nothing of the robot truckers visiting an Interstate near you in five years. Speaking of robot truck drivers, how does Logan die? His bones are adamentium (sp?). Given where he's impaled by the tree trunk, that would be impossible.

All of it and then some when you take into account the Fed's open market operations designed to build back up its balance sheet ala 2008. Fear not though: we're not Venezuela yet, nor will we be any time soon (barring a total global economic collapse). Venezuela is an emerging market, petro dollar economy that's experienced double digit inflation for well over 30 years (and by that I mean double digit inflation EVERY year for over thirty years). The fun part is, as someone with decades of experience and a couple of degrees in the subject, all the economic models of inflation haven't really panned out in the real world, at least not in terms of developed (think G8) nations printing money. Japan's had thirty years of deflation, and it's done nothing but print money and quantitatively ease. Germany had negative interest rates and could barely muster 2% inflation. The dollar is worth approximately the same as it was in Euros 20 years ago, and only slightly less when denominated in yen, but again, that's mostly a function of Japanese deflation. The reality is, instead of deficit spending, we could have just printed three or four trillion dollar bills and been done with it, and the crazy part is, relatively nothing would have happened with regards to inflation or the value of the dollar abroad. If we do that ten more times, not so much, but every developed country is in an arms race to inflate its way out of its debt load, and, basically, we're playing a game of chicken that will blow up, and probably in my lifetime, just not today.

For some ungodly reason, Goldman has a giant operations hub out in Utah I had to go visit a few years ago. Long and short, connected with Jeff Brown when he was still just the CFO of Ally in everything but name only, and we bonded over Clemson Football and Krispy Kreme donuts. When I saw that this was the final crown on the site a few weeks (maybe a month or two now; time has dilated weirdly during this pandemic), I called JB and was like, dude, WTF is that? Apparently, Ally had heard of toilet paper hoarding in China, so the "crown" is designed to make it look like toilet paper, and starting tomorrow, Ally is gonna give away a case of toilet paper with any new opened account (kinda like banks used to do with toasters); the crown is a reminder that Ally is your ally at the bank and in the bathroom. Crazy like a fox that one is.

I have several of my closest friends working in the PE/Hedge Fund space, one of whom is super connected in the hotel industry; maybe this should go under The Bad News Report, but IHG didn't have much in the way of cash at the end of 2019 to begin with, and now finds itself in the position of fire-selling certain assets. Per my friend, not only is this hotel not getting built, but QT is finalizing negotiations to buy the spot and put one of their iconic convenience stores there. If you think the math doesn't work (I couldn't fathom it), it wouldn't normally, but given where the hotel industry is (in terms of cash burn) QT was able to make the economics a go. And, in case this seems preposterous, here's a pic of the QT across the street from my place when I lived in downtown ATL a few years ago:

A relative of mind who is Kind of a Big DealTM at Duke tells me the new power tower won't be scrapped, but that they're looking to significantly downsize the size of the building given what they're learning from telecommuting as the result of the pandemic. Expect this to be scaled back to something closer to twenty stories in the shape of a boring glass box. BTW, it could have been worse: there was serious discussion about whether or not to keep a glass facade or to engage in something resembling the exposed steel beam lattice designed used prominently in Chicago, that way it would still be an "iconic" building Uptown; apparently there's no accounting for taste.

Can't stress this enough. The Nikkei peaked over 30 years ago on a corporate credit bubble combined with insane stock market valuations and a real estate boom than made tulip mania seem quaint, and today it stands at less than 50% of it's all-time high. BOJ ran out of bullets and, regardless of what they've done, a combination of automation, an aging population, and the end of monetary policy have conspired to make it impossible for them to reflate in any way shape or form. One can, in good faith, make a credible argument that we are not Japan (immigration policies, cultural attitudes, and corporate values are or were very different), but how we are very similar is that we have a debt bomb wrapped inside a stock market bubble wrapped inside a a real estate bubble. Sound familiar? It used to be called The Lost Generation. Now it's Lost Generations, and though I think there are many favorable things about the American economy, emerging markets have done next to nothing for a decade, and we're the Unicorn in the G8; this too shall pass, but the world ten years will look very very different, and it's not impossible that we won't wake up three years from now to a stock market still below its all time high. /Rant

I mean, I guess it depends on where you draw the line? CLT has more passengers than IAH and MIA (and way, way more flights; CLT is top TEN in the WORLD by number of flights), but you're not gonna get very far going abroad from CLT. Fun fact though: CLT has more international traffic than LGA, which I would have thought the internet was fooling me had I not looked it up.

Wow Morgan Stanley nailed the unemployment number, but frankly surprised that it was even that low. Fear is that a lot of folks are only applying as of this week and the big shoe drops next Thursday

I think it's a wonderful gesture and I hope many more Fortune 500 companies follow suit. I'm thinking more of the dudebros.

My Dearest Martha, Ignominious chaos today on the bartering floor: whiskey rations have run out and sojourns to that vineyard bearing your most beautiful name have been forbidden; I fear there are not enough fake accounts in all the land to assuage our need to eat foods that may not always be whole. After the battle of Breitbart and the Bowling Green Massacre it was my deepest hope that we had stuggit to the libs, yet they persist in spreading habitual prevarications about a disease that is easily defeated by essential oils. Nevertheless, out of an abundance of caution, I implore you to send chloroquine and gypsy tears that I may maintain the strength to add pet insurance and legal services to customer accounts, that we may never leave Quail Hollow again. I remain, Douchebro

Atrium, Novant, Wake Baptist, and numerous other health systems in North Carolina have or will cancel elective surgeries beginning this week. Epidemiologists are quarantining people who've been in Seattle and New York in the last two weeks out of an abundance of caution. My doctor, who is the chief medical officer of a major health system, is doing everything but carrying around a megaphone telling people to take this seriously. But, what the hell do doctors know? @gman430 is here to tell us they're all a bunch of idiots and that "it's my hot body I do what I want" is the correct posture. In the spirit of both sides, who can say who's right? 99.9% of climate scientists who believe in global warming, or the 0.1% of Bob Jones grads and a weatherman who don't? 99.9% of biologists who believe in Evolution, or Bob Jones grads and Ken Ham? The entire medical profession, or GMan? You just can't say. Because both sides.

How will I ever fly city to city in Europe strapped to the wing of the plane? Seriously, motherfudge Ryanair

American could have used all those profits it's generated over the years to do many things to keep itself viable in this situation; instead, it wasted most of its cash on share buybacks. Airlines, like several other industries, are run by some of the most myopic people you'll ever meet, in that the ONLY thing that matters is this quarter's share price. A pox on the airline industry; I hope to hell we don't bail them out with a blank check, because they are the poster children for privatizing gains and socializing losses.

A few observations from around the Intrawebs: 1) The recession is a foregone conclusion; 2) Most of the airlines will be in Chapter 11 Reorganization by early summer at the latest; 3) Airline travel may be permanently reduced (I guess nothing in business is "permanent," but for the foreseeable future) as the result of global growth no longer responding to monetary policy AND the potential for infection. My question is: what does it mean for CLT? Let's say we see a 10% reduction in air travel, annualized, for the next five years; what do?

We’re at the end of time with regards to monetary policy as an economic driver; Japan has been in a liquidity trap for (checks notes) thirty years; we just happen to be a generation and a half behind them. now the question really truly is: who has the chutzpah to print money like crazy to inflate their way out of this debt bomb? Cuz, the west is gonna begin decades-long deflation without just making money up. The everything bubble was gonna end one way or another. Destiny always arrives. Or something

I know I seem like a negative Nancy and a wet blanket, but by the time Raleigh could support an MLB team MLB may be very well be irrelevant. I may be a broken record, but lemme say it again: baseball doesn't want to be in half a dozen markets it's already in; it's not going to trade metro areas that don't support baseball for even smaller metro areas....

I transposed the doctor's name and all I could think of was....

So, on a scale of "don't do that again" to "you're going to monster jail," what's the risk of a few of us heading by the construction sight, picking up the parking pagoda, loading it onto the back of a pickup truck, and placing it in a safer location? Cuz, if it's on the "what is actually wrong with you guys" level of punishment if we get caught, I'd like to put it atop the podium where Silent Sam used to stand.

As a father I disapprove of you doing this. As a voyeur, this is one hell of a pic

There’s a reason fit testing exists in healthcare for masks: an ill-fitting mask isn’t gonna protect you from airborne and droplet precautions. And, on top of that, somebody who coughs in your eye or accidentally makes contact with open skin or gets stuff on your uni is the reason we have gloves and goggles and drapes. Boring surgmasks are “better safe than sorry” for chemo patients on an airplane; not especially helpful for a massive viral outbreak. More helpful? Being a vampire. So, do that. If you’re not too scared. But you’re probably too scared.

When people finish their day and hurry home, my stories begin My hours are 4AM to 2 AM They call it "silver line" Do I even have customers? You'd have to build me first

From a company that built this? On purpose? Not as a joke? I am really surprised it's trash. Really surprised:

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