Madbum

Jute said:

As one of the terminated employees I’ll share this. We were Channel Sales employees usually with 5+ years at Apple. We were terminated for “Business Reasons” not performance based. Although we knew our “Partners”, named in the article, were not fairing well in the current economic environment we were told “Apple doesn’t fire people. Apple finds new jobs for them just like we did when CompUSA closed”. Many times I was told “If something did happen at our Partner company Apple would just move you to another Partner not fire you”. All of this was bullshit. Apple is trying to avoid negative press right now. I suspected these Channel layoffs are but a start. It seems they are doing it in small chunks across many departments, these layoffs are estimated, by my former co-workers, to be between 50-100 people. Spread across all work groups or divisions the number keeps the headlines from reading “Apple fires 10,000 employees”. 

Stabitha_Christie said:

Madbum said:

Towson Union employees:


let’s make more demands! 

Good luck

Union contracts can protect members from layoffs, ensure members get a better package if they are laid off and require that they are rehired of the employer starts hiring again 

So unionized employees are in a far better auto-aim at the moment. 

Fantastic self own your part. Congrats!

carnegie said:

Madbum said:

There is nobody causing more harm to regular working people than the a federal Reserve with their crazy interest hikes based on lagged data. Well maybe with exception of Putin… But actually FED might be affecting more people than Putin…

an example, CPI report Fed based their policy on said there was a .8 increase in housing and shelter in December. Show be one place in this country housing increased by .8 percent in December…. The answer is none as all housing has been plunging since summer…

but the Fed is still using that lagged data…

so the Fed need to look in mirror before telling a Goldman what to do to protect consumers

Home prices have generally been falling, yes. But the BLS doesn't account for such things as part of its CPI reporting. An owned house is considered a capital good rather than a consumption good or service - an investment rather than a cost of living. Inflation measures are about the latter.

What the BLS measures for the Shelter category (as regards CPI) is the cost of renting for actual renters (excluding, e.g., utilities), the theoretical cost of renting for homeowners, the cost of lodging away from home (e.g. at college or in hotels) and the cost of renters and homeowners' insurance. The rent equivalent for homeowners is by far the largest component of the Shelter category, but it isn't based on the prices of current home sales. It's based on what they'd be paying in rent if they were renting instead of owning their residences. In other words, it's based on current rent prices.

The Housing category includes the Shelter category and some other things - e.g., in effect, utilities. But it still doesn't take into account current home prices. Again, CPI measures are about spending on consumption goods and services rather than capital goods investment.

Rental costs have been flattening and are perhaps just now rolling over (it depends on what reporting you look at), but they haven't been plunging, as you say, like home prices have been.