Bonus Episode: They Want Your Stuff

While you were mistletoe'ing and hopefully enjoying a good holiday, the power brokers were power broking. You think THEY take a break from money in December? 😆 If only.

 Key topics:

✔️ BlackRock out here talking about "a new regime." Not a new economy, a new circumstance, a new challenge. REGIME.
✔️ A lot of corporate fat cats' fingers are going into some important pies. I hope you are paying attention to this.
✔️ The average working class person is going to generate wealth from investing in hit songs and expensive art? On what planet?!?
✔️ Investors are going to hop in and "rebuild" Ukraine? Uh... you mean Зеленский didn't just come to the US to thank us for the taxpayer funds and then ask for more? You mean there might have been more going on? 


Links I discuss in this episode:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/blackrock-world-largest-asset-manager-223000827.html

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/att-blackrock-form-commercial-fiber-optic-platform-2022-12-23/

https://money.usnews.com/financial-advisors/articles/all-eyes-on-private-equity-for-long-term-returns

https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/capital-markets/cre-funds-may-be-forced-to-sell-buildings-if-investors-keep-pulling-out-their-capital-116686

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/reit.asp

https://survivingtomorrow.org/hyper-elites-are-desperate-for-a-recession-because-they-want-to-buy-your-assets-for-cheap-1e8800f836

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/28/zelenskyy-blackrock-ceo-fink-agree-to-coordinate-ukraine-investment.html


Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/ 

Transcript

0:15

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host. Sara Causey With layoffs increasing and unemployment on the rise, will you survive a job market crash? Download Sara's mini book Will You Survive a Job Market Crash on Amazon today. Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. Welcome back. I guess we could do it with some Welcome Back Kotter energy here your dreams were your ticket out. I suppose though, in the near term, we're more likely to have nightmares than sweet dreams. I know that probably sounds very pessimistic and dour. Just trying to be real with you. So last week, during that notorious dead week, between Christmas and New Year's when, let's face it, most people want to relax. If you're off work, you don't want to think about the office. You know, when we're thinking about the economy, you want to just rest and relax. So while people were chilling out, doing what they do enjoying that time, do you think that the power brokers were having their hot Punch Around the fire and opening their Christmas presents and not thinking about the economy not thinking about ways to make money or to steal money? No, indeed, they were not. No, no, no, no, no. And no. There were a few headlines sort of got quietly snuck in to the news cycle during that debt week, sort of in my mind like, Well, hey, you can't say we didn't report on it. You can't say that we didn't tell you. We just slipped it in. While nobody was likely to be paying attention. Plus, a lot of the news cycle was on this insane bomb cyclone weather event that we had. There, there had been more acts of vandalism at various power stations. So there were people with snow on the ground and brutally cold temperatures that didn't have electricity. The winter storm caused all kinds of travel delays and headaches, people getting separated from each other separated from their luggage stranded at airports. So that was a nightmare. In some parts of the country, people died. There were houses that were damaged, there were businesses that collapsed. I saw a video of a gas station, I think in Buffalo, where the entire roof, and most of the building had just collapsed down onto the gas pumps. So I'm not going to sit here and say that that storm wasn't a complete beast, and it didn't deserve any news coverage. The point I'm making is that while we were all distracted by that, there were other things taking place in the news cycle. And I want to talk about that now. I don't bury my thesis on here. You guys know that. They want your stuff. The power brokers, the fat cats, the investors, the corporate raiders, they know what's coming. And they know that in a recession or a depression, they can pick up assets on the cheap. This is not new information, and it's not hidden information. These economic cycles have in fact, happened before you I'm reminded of the medication shortage. On more than one Saturday broadcast. I talked about that. And I warned you that I had heard whispers on the wind that we could see medication shortages, especially when we got into the winter months into prime cold and flu season. I also reported on going into local stores here in the Midwest and sometimes there would be no ibuprofen. You might be able to find aspirin or or acetaminophen but you couldn't find ibuprofen. Then the next week, it might be completely flip flopped. You might be able to find something like Advil or Motrin, but you couldn't find Tylenol. I feel sorry for people who didn't see it coming. And at the same time, I scratch my head and wonder where they've been in my mind, and I know I'm gonna get hate mail for saying this, but I really don't care. If you have time to play on Tik Tok, and record 1000 videos of yourself documenting every moment of your life. But you don't have time apparently to I don't know. Read the news. Tune into something that might help listen to a podcast or someone on YouTube. That's telling you, hey, a medication shortage is probably going to happen. You might want to prepare for it ahead of time. If you have time to watch drivel if your life halls around what Harry and Megan are doing, or what what's going on with the Kardashians and all of that junk. But you don't have time to put some basic medication, some bandages, some antiseptic for your wounds, if you don't have time to put that kind of stuff back, but you do have time to watch all of that other junk on social media. I really don't know what to tell you. How much sympathy Do you extend to somebody, when it's not that they really truly don't have the time, it's that they just don't want to do the preparation. As I've said before, and will continue to say, this poopoo, Storm, whatever phase of it we're already in, and however bad it's getting ready to get. It's not the average working class or poor person's fault. Unfortunately, middle class working class, impoverished people, we will all be the ones who pay the price for this. And in my mind, you have to be prepared, you have to have some kind of education. You have to be willing to look unflinchingly at the data and say, even if this is uncomfortable, even if it's news, I don't like, I don't want to get left out in the cold. I don't want to not know what's coming, and then get blindsided by it later. I have to tell you, I really feel like the intel that I've gotten the whispers on the wind that I've heard from various sources has been spot on. If I told you that there was a shortage coming, and hey, I heard this was going to happen, I heard the grid might go down. I mean, by and large, the whispers on the wind have proven to be true. So I am hopeful that wherever you are right now, you're in good shape. You use the holiday season to rest to relax, to reconnect with friends and family and to build up those relationships. And at the same time you look for gaps in your preps, you worked out your job loss survival plan, you know, in an emergency, those first five phone calls after a layoff, you know who those people are, and they know to expect a phone call from you. They know that if the Poopoo hits the fan, you may have to call them and they in return could call you. And if you could help them you would be that resource for them. I hope that's what you did. I always say I cannot tell you what to do. And I cannot give you advice. Just sitting here opining for your entertainment only I hope to God that you use your time wisely. On that note, on Wednesday, December 28. on Yahoo Finance we found BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager says central banks are deliberately causing recessions and warns of a downturn unlike any other. Um, yeah. Let me try to hit some echo on that. I'll just do it manually. No. Dadadada. Yeah. So here we go. They know what's coming. They're not naive. None of the fat cats and the power brokers and these titans of business, none of them are going to be caught off guard by what's coming down the road. The people who will be caught off guard I mean, no disrespect when I say this, but it's the same people that are sitting around now going oh, just didn't know that there would be a medicine shortage. Now I watch 1000 videos per day on tick tock but holy shit, I couldn't be bothered to watch any news. To use the phrase du jour. Come on, man. That does not have to be you. I'll read from this article. Many experts have already sounded the alarm on the US economy. But you still want to pay attention to what Blackrock the world's largest asset manager has to say, for a very simple reason. It's predicting a recession unlike any other recession is foretold as central bank's race to try to tame inflation Black Rocks team of strategists write in their 2023 global outlook. In fact, the strategists believe that central banks are deliberately causing recessions by over tightening policy in an effort to bring price levels under control. In the past, when the economy entered a downturn, the Fed typically stepped in to help but due to the cause of this projected recession, and look, man, haven't we heard 1000s of different projected causes for why it's happening. Everything from MIT the men folk did it. It's all Gen Z and millennials fault wage hikes blobby blah, blah, blah, okay, Blackrock says we can't count on the central bank. Yes, this is also a no dull moment for me. Central bankers won't ride to the rescue when growth slows in this new regime. Wow. Wow. They didn't say new economy, new circumstances. They said new regime. Read it go please, please go to this article for yourself and read it. Don't just take my word for it read this for yourself. Central bankers won't ride to the rescue when growth slows in his new regime, contrary to what investors have come to expect, and that does not bode well for stocks. The s&p 500 has already plunged 20% year to date, but Blackrock believes that equity valuations don't yet reflect the damage ahead. Oh, yeah. So all these people out there harping on you to buy the dip things if things have already gotten as bad as they're gonna get. You just go ahead and you start buying that dip. Doesn't sound like that's what Blackrock is saying to do. If this recession does turn out to be different from previous ones, maybe it's time to look for unconventional ways to hedge against it. Ah, yeah. unconventional ways. Why don't they just tell you to bend over and kiss your behind goodbye, that might be just about the same thing. Okay, so on December 23, there was an article on Reuters AT and T and BlackRock to form commercial fiber optic platform. Oh, all right. Well, let's see what else they've got going on. wireless carrier AT and T and fund manager Blackrock are forming a joint venture to operate a fiber optic platform in the United States. The company said on Friday, the venture GigaPower LLC plans to deploy its network to an initial 1.5 million customer locations outside of at and T's traditional 21 state wireline service presents. The company said they would jointly own and govern GigaPower but did not disclose additional deal terms. The news comes as AT and T he plans to expand its high speed home internet service to newer areas in the country. In a bid to attract new subscribers. Bloomberg News reported in October that at&t had hired Morgan Stanley to help bring in an infrastructure partner to the venture, which could be valued at 10 billion to $15 billion. So we're talking about some pretty big heavy hitters here BlackRock, Morgan Stanley at & t. AT and T did not immediately respond to a Reuters request seeking more details on the deal while Blackrock declined to comment. AT and T plans to report consumer subscribers served through GigaPower in its operational results and said any impact on spending and free cash flow from the venture will be included in the forecast it plans to provide at its quarterly earnings next month. BlackRock which manages $313 billion in alternative investments that include private equity, real estate and credit. When I say that, again, private equity, real estate and credit has signed the deal via a fund in its diversified infrastructure unit. Hmm, a lot of fingers and a lot of interesting pies there, don't you think? So now we'll jump over to an article on US news and world report that was published on November 30 of this year. All eyes on private equity for long term returns. Investors are turning to private equity to outperform over the next decade. I'll read the outlook for private equity investing in the coming decade. The Oh excuse me, the outlook is bright for private equity investing in the coming decade Blackrock central expected return for private equity as an asset class is 11.2% over the next 10 years. For the same time period, Blackrock anticipates a return of 8.8% for US equities, and an 8% return for a global balanced allocation of 60 6040. So 60% stocks and 40% bonds. Private equity can help generate long term capital growth and keep investors invested through market downturns. Scott Reeder, head of the alternative investment team for Black Rocks us wealth advisory business. So they give you a few little tidbits there. If you're interested in looking at private equity as an asset class. I'll read just a little bit more. We are exceedingly bullish on private equity as an asset class for its propensity to drive outsized investor returns in the years ahead, says Greg Bassick, Chief Executive Officer for the alternative investments Firm A x s investments. Likewise the next decade also will represent the very first period during which financial advisors and their individual investor clients will have as much access to private equity investing as needed to enable the broader investing public to reap the same benefits of private equity exposure as their instant Traditional investor counterparts have enjoyed for years. I'm sure. Private equity has been a source of wealth generation for investors for many years. Take for example, Brookfield asset management's $2 billion deal with primary wave music in October of this year. This state now includes revenue from a catalogue of hit songs such as private eyes recorded by Hall & oates back in 1981. So in other words, some of these private equity investments involve things that are, let's say, unconventional, like, for example, a musician's catalogue of music and being able to cash in on the royalties from that. Okay, you may wonder, all right, well, so what is what does that have to do with anything? Why are you telling us this? I'm gonna get there. So about a week after US News and World Report gives us this weirdo article, in my opinion, making it seem as though just the average person, the average Joe Blow out on the street is going to be able to access this private equity investment strategy. As though John and Jane Q Public, walking down the street living paycheck to paycheck are going to be able to buy out some musicians catalogue and make millions of dollars in royalties, or they're going to be able to buy some billion dollar work of art, right? Yeah, of course. So about a week after that on because now we read, soaring investor withdrawals may force real estate funds to sell buildings that was published on December the sixth of this year. In this article, we find investors trying to reduce their exposure to a declining property market, our move are moving to pull their money out of commercial real estate funds at a faster clip than they have in years and what could be shaping up as a big problem for the industry. Non traded ar e i Ts, I will kind of butt in here to explain that an ar e it is a real estate investment trust. If you want to get more information on exactly what they are and how they work. I will drop a link to a very good article summary on Investopedia so that you can zoom over there and take a look at it. Alright, non traded Rei T's like those run by Blackstone and Starwood that have kept investor redemptions in the past week paid out at 3.7 billion in withdrawals in the third quarter 12 times more than the same period in 2021. According to Robert A Stanger and company data reported by The Wall Street Journal, withdrawals were at 2.9 billion in q2 after not hitting the $1 billion threshold in any quarter going back to 2018. If the trend continues, these funds may be forced to sell buildings to meet investors demands the Wall Street Journal reported that puts pressure on prices overall net Kellogg President and Director of manager search at investment advisor market associates told The Wall Street Journal he added an increasing number of the pension funds and university endowments his company advisors are considering withdrawing money from real estate funds. Blackstone's non traded Rei T Blackstone real estate Income Trust Inc, started limiting redemption requests in November and December after withdrawals exceeded 2% of the funds net asset value, which is the monthly limit and more than 5% threshold. That's allowed per quarter. The halt on redemptions was put in place to prevent a liquidity mismatch it told investors last week Hmm. Let's scroll down just a little bit and get back to our old friend BlackRock, BlackRock and CBRE Investment Management owned funds have also been taking steps to stop investors from pulling out their funds. While the non traded Rei T's are able to cap withdrawals on a monthly or quarterly basis. If the outflows continue, it could force them to sell assets to fulfill investor redemptions. The string of withdrawals comes as the outlook for real estate has become decidedly less rosy. Do you think interest rates frozen debt markets and uncertainty around remote work? And what it will do to the long term outlook for rents and the corresponding office values all hang over the market? There's a lot going on there. I know again, okay. I get it. This is a scary topic. But if you're dependent on a pension or retirement fund, and it all goes to hell, I mean, what if you were invested in something like this? And it went straight into the trash can I mean, how would you handle that? That's one scary thing that's going on in this article. But let's just dumb Let's just put our tinfoil hats on here for just a second. What do you think will happen if corporate real estate goes in the dumper? I mean, I think to some degree that's already happening. For one thing, remote work, work from home work from anywhere models. 10,000% going to take the blame you peons and plebs just didn't want to come back. We told you, the mayors of these major cities told you that you needed to come back and cross pollinate. You needed to be shopping in the shops downtown, you need to go back to your office, you needed to be taking the public transportation down there, you need to be eating in the cafes and schmoozing in the coffee shops and the bars and happy hour and you just didn't do it. We are in this mess because you didn't obey. We know better than you. We don't care about your domestic infrastructure in the slightest. You didn't get your butt down here and do what you were told. And so all of this mess is your fault. I don't see any way around that. But what do you think will happen to the actual real estate? Can you imagine a scenario other than these huge investors and corporate behemoths scooping all of it up on the cheap. Seriously, is there any other option that you can conjure up in your mind besides that, what do you really think they're gonna do you think they're just gonna take a bulldozer and a wrecking ball and go through some major town they're gonna just like demolish the entire downtown and not have office buildings down there anymore. Really? Over on medium.com Jared a Brock has a fantastic article that he published on November 4, titled hyper elites are desperate for a recession, because they want to buy your assets for cheap. The byline reads, recessions are part of the business plan for the great reset to serfdom. Yeah. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. If you have some fantasy in your mind, that they're just going to demolish these office buildings, or they're going to repurpose them, maybe they're going to turn them into like hotels for the homeless or something like that. No, no, no, somebody will swoop in and get them on the cheap, and do whatever they want. And if that means pulling a lord Ilan and telling you unemployment from well, it's a hell of a lot higher than I mean, 4.4%. So if you want to eat, and keep the heat on in your house, and keep it cool, in the summertime, you're gonna get your butt back in this cube farm. I hate to break it to you. I really do. I hate to be the voice of doom out here. But I'm just I'm trying to tell you reality as I see it. Right now, we're in this weird, transitional period. And transitional periods are always by nature, weird, somewhat unpredictable, and unwieldy. There's that tug of war, and that back and forth, back and forth energy that we have to deal with, again, at the risk of sounding a broken record, trying to explain that to some hard headed hiring managers can be quite a challenge. Because they don't really want to accept the idea of things not being cut and dry. And being able to just hammer everything down with a convenient phrase. The great recession for white collar knowledge work is over. It's toast and it and it has been I really think I mean, I cannot pinpoint an exact date for you. But I really, if I had to hazard a guess I really think that it happened somewhere around q2 of last year. I think q2 of 2022 was sort of when most white collar knowledge workers started looking around and saying, wait a minute, maybe I don't want to relentlessly job hot, maybe job hopping isn't the best strategy right now. Maybe I need to cool my jets a little bit, chill out, and stay put and just kind of see where everything's going to go. Back in 2021, calling people on the phone to pitch jobs. I mean, unless it was just a garbage job. I mean, if you had a good job at a reputable company, and you were trying to pitch it to them, it was not terribly difficult. Just it really was not getting somebody on the phone, having them feel that they are a free agent, and they should always put themselves in first place was not difficult. By about q2 of 2022. It was a freaking nightmare. And the more that the year went on, the more difficult it became and this idea of the shoulder tap. Oh, I'm going to come out ahead of the company and vet you and make you tap dance for me before you get to tap dance for them. People didn't want that. They didn't want it. They didn't want it anyway objectively, but they really sure as hell didn't want it in an economic crap storm. But again, trying to explain that to people But get in this mentality of, well, this is how we've always recruited or this, this strategy has worked well for us since 1932. And I can't believe you're trying to come in and shake all of it up, well, you're gonna get left behind. I mean, it'd be stubborn at your own risk. The other side of the coin too, though, a lot of people know what's coming. And by that, I mean people in management, people in executive level positions, people that have investments that get to hear what's really going on behind the scenes, they know what's coming. And so I think a lot of them are just waiting for the axe to drop. And for the general public, the people are like, we had no idea there'd be a medicine shortage, that average person that's paying more attention to Harry and Megan, and what's going on in the royal family, even though that may not affect them at all, in any way, shape, or form. They're waiting until those people get desperate for work. It is, I mean, Jared a Brock hits the nail on the head. It is a pathway to serfdom. And it really, really, really will be a pathway to Serfdom for you if you're not paying attention. I'll read from his article now. A giant recession is coming. Can you feel it corporate as governments are now predicting it will be the worst recession since the Great Depression. Central Banksters are practically gleeful in their interest rate, raising announcements framing themselves as the savior of the economy in the fight against the very inflation they caused in the first place. Yep. The elites believe you to have too much wealth and power to say no right now. So it's time to squeeze it out of you and put you back in your place. Huh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And in my mind, you know, since since my bellwethers the job market, in my mind that 100% is going to involve w two full time people, an individual that does not want to work for themselves, they don't want to assume their own benefits or they can't, for whatever reason, they're going to get squeezed back into the cube farm or back into the office back into compliance. These fat cats are going to sweep through and buy up corporate real estate, private real estate. I mean, they're they're already doing it. My point in reading that article about alternative investments is to say they already have their fingers in so many pies, even places that you wouldn't even expect the music that you listen to Telecom, your internet access your telephone access, cell phone access, works of art. It's easy to call something alternative investment. And then people go What the hell is that and they tune out. A lot of controls going on there. A lot of control is going on there. And on that note, on December 28th. on CNBC, we found Zelinsky and BlackRock CEO Fink agreed to coordinate Ukraine investment. Oh, wow. So you mean him rolling over here and talking to Congress and his standard sweatshirt and khakis wasn't just to thank us for sweet taxpayer money. You mean? You mean there was something else going on to clutch my pearls? In the key points we find Blackrock financial markets advisory and the Ukrainian Minister of Economy signed a memorandum of understanding in November Zelinsky. And Fink agreed Wednesday to focus in the near term on coordinating the efforts of all potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of our country channeling investment into the most relevant and impactful sectors of the Ukrainian economy. Wow, the reconstruction of our country. There are so many thoughts racing through my mind most of them I'm just I'm not going to say on the air because, you know, you just you can't you just can't. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink agreed to coordinate investment in rebuilding Ukraine. Kyiv announced Wednesday following a meeting between the two men. A readout from the Ukrainian president's official website said Zelinsky and Fang category to focus in the near term on coordinating the efforts of all potential investors and participants in the reconstruction of our country, channeling investment into the most relevant and impactful sectors of the Ukrainian economy. BlackRock financial markets advisory and the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy signed a memorandum of understanding in November, after Fink and Zelinsky met in September to discuss driving public and private investments into Ukraine to rebuild the country after Russia's highly destructive invasion. BlackRock, one of the world's largest investment managers has been providing advisory support For designing an investment framework, with a goal of creating opportunities for both public and private investors to participate in the future reconstruction and recovery of the Ukrainian economy, the company said in a statement last month, Blackrock had no further statement at this stage Zelinsky last week, visited Washington DC to meet with US President Joe Biden and deliver an address to Congress, as the US House of Representatives gave final approval on Friday to a $45 billion aid package for Ukraine and quote. Yeah, speaking of control, and having your fingers in a lot of pies. Okay, so Russia comes in, and bombs the hell out of this country. And we see all these horrible images and people are quick to put up the image of the Ukrainian flag on social media because I guess that's supposed to do something. And then we learn that Black Rock in addition to the telecom and the unconventional alternative investments and the corporate real estate and all of this stuff, now, they've also got a hand in quote, rebuilding, okay, those evil rooskies came over here and drop their bombs and tore the country all to hell, but it's okay now, because we're gonna give you billions and billions of dollars. And we are also going to make sure that we participate in the rebuilding of the country, for both public and private infrastructure. We're going to give investors the opportunity to swoop in here and save the day. We're gonna fix your misery with even better solutions. I'm sure they're probably gonna say they're gonna build Ukraine back better. How did that work out over here in the in the US, you know, have we been built back better? Mm hmm. Yeah, as I've said many, many times, be naive at your own risk. I really, really deep in my bones feel that whatever this is, that's coming, recession, depression, 1970 stagflation economic collapse, whatever you want to say it as I really, truly believe that it is going to separate out people who paid attention. People who had some level of awareness and they were able to cushion themselves in some way, nobody can see around every dark corner. Nobody 100% knows the future. But I do believe it's going to separate out people who paid attention and did some degree of prep work, versus people that are goofing off on social media. They're worried about what's happening with Hollywood celebrities and gossip and just complete and utter nonsense. It does not have to be you. It truly it doesn't stay safe, stay sane. And I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a quick second to subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends. We'll see you next time.