It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe …
Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.
Here we go …
Credits and Debits
Credit: The latest US employment data shows that 292,000 new jobs were created in December, while the unemployment rate held steady at just 5.0%. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Credit: At least one mortgage industry website certainly thought the report was positive. In fact, the MReport said the December jobs dispatch was so good that it actually “outdid itself once again.” Yes, “once again.”
Debit: Then again, those who were willing to dig into the dirty details came to a vastly different conclusion. David Stockman notes that, after taking into account the usual government statistical hocus pocus, only 11,000 new jobs were actually created. Well … at least here in the real world.
Debit: Even worse, there were just 8000 new manufacturing jobs created in America last month. Yes, just 8000 — with the hocus pocus — in a country with a population of 325 million people. And this is supposed to be good news?
Credit: As financial analyst Dave Kranzler more aptly observes, unless you’re living in a fantasy world, “The (total jobs) number reported is not even remotely credible when put in the context of what’s happening to the U.S. economy.” Frankly, Mr. Kranzler is being too kind.
Debit: Of course, a lack of well-paying jobs that can actually support a family is no doubt the reason why, despite being seven years into a so-called “recovery,” 93% of American counties still haven’t recovered from the last recession. I know, I know … we’ve got to be patient.
Debit: Meanwhile, Obamacare is so expensive, fully one in three Americans are cutting spending on food, rent and other essentials just to afford the healthcare premiums. Forward!
Credit: On the bright side, our broken healthcare system would be so much worse if the $2500 in annual healthcare savings promised to average American families by all those Obamacare advocates before it became the law of the land was actually a bald-faced lie. Oh wait …
Debit: Meanwhile, the US stock market had another rough week, capped off with big losses on Friday. The Dow is now back to levels not seen last August. For the week, the Dow was down another 2.4%, the S&P fell another 2.2%, and Nasdaq lost 2.7%. Ouch.
Debit: For the year, the stock markets are even worse: the Dow is down 8.2%, the S&P is off 8%, Dow Transports have plunged 10.9%, the Nasdaq has lost 10.4%, and the Russell 2000 has disappeared into the abyss, losing 11.3%. (And yet, I sleep like a baby at night.)
Debit: In his State of the Union speech this week, President Obama insisted that, “Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction.” No, really. By the way, I had no idea the President read Len Penzo dot Com.
Debit: But seriously, folks — if the American economy isn’t declining, then how do you explain WalMart’s decision to shutter 154 stores in the US? Yes, that WalMart.
Debit: I’m sure Puerto Rico doesn’t think any talk of economic decline is fear mongering and lies. According to none other than US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, the American territory and so-called 51st state “is in the midst of an economic collapse.” Not a recession — economic collapse. Is he a fiction peddler too?
Credit: Finally … three winning lottery tickets split the $1.5 billion — yes, billion — Powerball jackpot this week. Believe it or not, one of those tickets was sold at a local market that is literarily just down the street from where I live.
Debit: No, it wasn’t my ticket.
The Question of the Week
[poll id="96"]
Last Week’s Poll Result
Have you seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens yet?
- No, and I probably never will (36%)
- Yes (33%)
- Not yet, but I will eventually (31%)
More than 800 people answered this week’s survey question and, despite all the recent hoopla over the box office bonanza for the latest Star Wars movie, only 1 in 3 Len Penzo dot Com readers have seen the movie — so far. You can count me among that group, although I expect I’ll be in the other camp before the month is out.
By the Numbers
Pizza anyone? For what it’s worth, here’s a closer look at the latest data on the pizza business:
$38,500,000,000 Total pizzeria sales in 2014.
54% Pizzerias owned by independents.
15% Piece of the monetary pie that belongs to Pizza Hut, the top pizza chain in terms of sales.
10% Sales that belong to Domino’s, Pizza Hut’s closest competitor.
3.14 Approximate value of pizza pi: the ratio of a circular pizza’s circumference to its diameter.
1 New Hampshire’s rank among the states in pizzerias per capita. (3.87 per 10,000 residents.)
1.05 Pizzerias per 10,000 residents in Hawaii, which ranks it last in pizzerias per capita.
78% People who refuse to rein in their pizza cravings due to health concerns.
Source: PMQ Pizza Magazine (Well … except for the “pizza pi” factoid; that’s mine.)
Other Useless News
Here are the top — and bottom — five Canadian provinces and territories in terms of the average number of pages viewed per visit here at Len Penzo dot Com over the past 30 days:
1. Saskatchewan (2.12 pages/visit)
2. Quebec (1.92)
3. Nova Scotia (1.79)
4. Manitoba (1.75)
5. British Columbia (1.73)
9. Ontario (1.61)
10. New Brunswick (1.49)
11. Nunavut (1.25)
12. Northwest Territories (1.20)
13. Yukon Territory (1.11)
Whether you happen to enjoy what you’re reading (like those crazy canucks in Saskatchewan, eh) — or not (you hosers living on the frozen Yukon tundra) — please don’t forget to:
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(The Best of) Letters, I Get Letters
Every week I feature the most interesting question or comment — assuming I get one, that is. And folks who are lucky enough to have the only question in the mailbag get their letter highlighted here whether it’s interesting or not! You can reach me at: Len@LenPenzo.com
Superman has Lex Luthor and I have Oscar — who (this week) wanted to know:
If you had the cash on hand and your two options for buying a $100,000 house were for $125,000 or $200,000, which would you choose? DUH!
Um … Is that a trick question, Oscar?
I’m Len Penzo and I approved this message.
Photo Credit: brendan-c
“(And yet, I sleep like a baby at night.)”
You wake up every 2-3 hours crying?
Good one, mog! Heh.
I guess I should have explained that I sleep like a baby without colic.
I bought 5 tickets for the Powerball lottery to try my luck, but I don’t usually do this as I prefer to save my money.
I worked at a place for a year where everyone bought lotto tickets, even going in together on the bigger ones. I never joined them. One of them won once during that year. $5.
It’s like seeing someone get beat up by a bully and your friends chiding you for not taking him on. “Are you nuts?”
In the early 90s, a group of about 20 engineers where I work pooled their resources and won the California lottery jackpot. After it was all said and done they ended up with an annual $7500 check (give or take) for 20 years. It didn’t make them independently wealthy, but it was a nice annual bonus.
“Debit: Meanwhile, Obamacare is so expensive, fully one in three Americans are cutting spending on food, rent and other essentials just to afford the healthcare premiums. Forward!”
I can’t read this site anymore. Blatant misrepresentation like that is the reason. Read your own link. Actually, don’t, you’re just parroting their bad reading; read the original Kaiser report and you’ll see where they went wrong. Then, when you find sites (like this one) feeding you crap, take them off your reading list. I’m out.
The truth hurts, huh?
I read the link — and the Kaiser poll. The report is quite clear: “34% of those who were insured were unable to pay for basic necessities like food, heat and housing as a result of their healthcare bills.” What is so difficult to understand? Do you really believe the insured being talked about there are patients with employer-based healthcare plans? Get real.
Clearly, the vast majority, if not all, of the insured referred to in the poll have to be Obamacare patients. This certainly wasn’t a problem with those who had health insurance BEFORE Obamacare. Today, everybody is forced under penalty of law to buy Obamacare if they aren’t fortunate enough to have employer plans. And unlike most employer plans, Obamacare imposes high premiums and then the ridiculous deductibles on top of that. See, in the real world, Obamacare plans would never exist — because nobody in their right mind would ever willingly buy such an absurd insurance plan that features high premiums AND high deductibles.
Here’s a real-world example: If I didn’t have my employer’s plan the cheapest Obamacare policy in 2015 would have cost me $12000 per year in premiums for my family and $5000 annual deductibles for each family member. That’s $32,000 of out of pocket medical expenses PER YEAR, worst case, before Obamacare would pay out a single dime. What a joke.
Of course, I’m sure you were one of those advocates who were insisting people like me would be saving $2500 per year. The lies are okay though because the ends — twisted as they are — justified the means, right?
In the end, all that happened was a massive redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the poor; so middle class families now pay healthcare premiums for their family — and lots of other people too, including those with preexisting conditions. Brilliant. As a result, one percent benefits at the expense of everyone else.
So it’s back to the fantasy world of Daily Kos, Mother Jones and HuffPo for you. Forward! Utopia awaits.
Oh … And don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Buh bye.
Len,
Ahhhh yes, the ends justify the means! I’m betting Obama learned that from one of his communist heroes, Saul Alinsky! Come to think of it, that’s who Hillary idolizes as well. Let’s just vote her in office so we can get on this collapse and reset already!
Jared