Here goes:
- Wrote five articles and posted them to Money Daily
- Wrote five college basketball "Player of the Day" articles, uploaded pics of the players, posted to idleguy.com.
- Prepared five daily quizzes for the Daily Idler at idleguy.com and posted them.
- Worked on various pages for upcoming March issue of idleguy.com
- Continued to build out online store at Downtown Magazine. Added 20-30 pages. Posted a number of magazines for sale.
- Researched how to build "ladder" navigation bar, implemented it in store.
Oops, that's six.
Ok, it took me about 2 1/2 minutes for those six, and, if you've ever run your own business, you can understand that I could have kept going. I did a lot more than just those six things, which, actually, are about 30 or 40 things.
The point of Musk's email was probably not to see what everybody was doing all week but to see how many did not respond. He suspects many government "jobholders" are fake, the workers non-existent, and the money being paid to whomever constitutes fraud. He's probably right, though just how right is a scary prospect. The number of no-show jobs could be hundreds of thousands, though I suspect it will amount to maybe 70-150,000 total. At least I hope it's a small number because the stories coming out of DOGE and D.C. have been fairly disturbing, in a manner that leads people to believe their tax dollars - in addition to all the money the government borrows - is being wasted in a very large way.
My point is different. It is about work ethic and accountability. Federal workers need a boss or manager to tell them what to do, how to do it, when to do it, etc. In my situation, I have built accountability into my "job." If I don't write my three daily pieces, nobody else will and my readers will notice. I will lose readers and money. Same goes for the monthly idleguy.com commitment and building out the online store (long overdue, sorry).
Perhaps government work should be restructured. Instead of unions negotiating automatic annual pay raises and congress rubber-stamping them, government jobs should come with incentives and penalties. Do good, high quality work, get a bonus. Slack off, no raise, probation, possible firing, for the most egregious, loss of pension. Reform of the federal government is long overdue. President Trump received a mandate (twice now) to fix the broken system in Washington and beyond. Having the world's richest man overseeing efforts that will root out the waste, fraud, and abuse is a godsend.
Complain all you like about Elon Musk, but he's not getting paid to do this. Besides, were he on the payroll, what would his salary be? $150,000 a year. $250,000? A couple of million? Any amount would likely be a bargain, but Musk, not needing the money, does it for free because he knows it is the right thing to do and he knows how to do it. Americans are fortunate to have a two verified genius businessmen working for their benefit. The complainers are people who don't see the problem with $36 trillion of debt, workers who aren't required to even show up, and members of congress who win elections as middle class and emerge after a few years as multi-millionaires. Those who complain are the status quo who have been getting their palms greased for years, even decades. They're the problem, not President Trump or Elon Musk or J.D. Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., Kash Patel, Scott Bessent, or Pam Bondi.
Trump was sent by the people to fix the system and he's assembled a team to do just that. The problem, when all is said and done, is that unemployment in the D.C. metro area is going to skyrocket, money previously going to workers, contractors, anybody with a hand out, is going to dry up and it will snowball from there. Fewer dollars circulating though the economy - a lot fewer - will likely precipitate a recession. How mild or severe it becomes depends on how deep is the rot in D.C. and how deeply Trump, Musk, et. al. carve it up. One might suspect that cuts to the general grifting system will be quite severe.
And that's why Wall Street is nervous. An economy slowly grinding down before it is rebuilt isn't exactly a blueprint for profits. People will limited means tend to spend less. Unemployed people spend even less and the U.S. economy is dependent on people not just spending, but spending more every month, every quarter, every year. With hundreds of thousands of government workers out of a job and possibly millions of illegal aliens sent packing, tons of money that was being spent isn't going to be any more. It's coming. Count on it. The bright side is that once all the rot is ripped out, loafers fired, endless regulations rolled back, Americans can actually start doing what they do best, innovating and creating new businesses to take advantage of new opportunity. America is not known as "land of opportunity" for nothing. It's everywhere, and with government and hordes of slack-jawed rule-writers out of the way, it will be widely available.
Bottom line, there is likely to be a recession and it is likely to be deep but probably not long. It has probably already begun and will last maybe through the end of this year or into the first half of next year. That's when the fun begins. Prosperity, jobs, innovation, opportunity. It's all there.
Meanwhile, Wall Street remains spooked because they're focused on the here and now, on the immediacy of profits, and stocks are obviously a little pricey. There seems to be only one way stocks can go now unless Wall Street's biggest players want to extend and pretend until nobody can deny the economic condition. If so, the rush for the exits will be a stampede, a crash. It's probably better that Wall Street continues to be in denial and the decline is slow and gradual. As the case may be a 30-40% correction isn't going to happen overnight. Give it six months to a year. Then buy back in. What do you think Warren Buffett is going to do with his $350 billion war chest? For now, he's waiting, but, rest assured, the old man knows his stuff and he'll be buying at or near the bottom.
So far this week, markets have been a bit messy, but help is on the way. Lowe's (LOW) and AB InBev (BUD) reported before the open and both stocks are sporting 4-5% gains pre-market. Advance Auto Parts (AAP) reported earnings that beat consensus but issued iffy guidance, sending shares marginally lower.
Elsewhere, Instacart (CART), reporting after Tuesday's closing bell, missed fourth quarter estimates and offered downbeat guidance for the first quarter. Shares are trending down about 10%. Intuit (INTU) topped expectations, returning $3.32 per share. The stock price is rising pre-market, up eight percent. First Solar (FSLR) announced fourth quarter earnings of $3.65, short of estimates, but the stock is trading four to five percent higher.
After the bell, Nvidia (NVDA) and Dow Component SalesForce (CRM) report, so Wednesday looks to have great expectations.
WTI crude got hammered lower on Tuesday, dropping as low as $68.75, with more room to fall. Back in September, it bottomed at $65.75, and, even though that may have been politically-motivated, all indications point to lower oil prices ahead.
Bitcoin plunged to a low of $86,468 on Tuesday, recovered a bit overnight but is falling again this morning ($87,338.03)
Gold lost ground on Tuesday, currently around $2,925, with silver just above $32. Stock futures, expectedly, are soaring.
At the Close, Tuesday, February 25, 2025:
Dow: 43,621.16, +159.95 (+0.37%)
NASDAQ: 19,026.39, -260.54 (-1.35%)
S&P 500: 5,955.25, -28.00 (-0.47%)
NYSE Composite: 19,924.05, +64.85 (+0.33%)
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