good morning Cents of things it’s Jeff and  Ron here once again with another episode of  

the Cents of things for this week on this  week’s show I’m going to share with you a  

little bit getting us into the Halloween season  The Fall season um we’re GNA kick off with five  

interesting Halloween facts that I wasn’t aware  of before today and then I’m gonna go over some  

of the stuff that’s going on in the job situation  if you remember on our last show Ron and I talked  

a lot about the the jobs part of the world has  been booing everything else up and that was our  

theory of why the economy’s continued to not  do so well but the stock market has so we’re  

going to go through the job stuff today and  just share with you some things that I it was  

interesting to me so I hope it’ll be interesting  to you so hang on we’ll be right back with you

jobs week in the start of the fourth quarter so  I guess it’s good I you want to reflect on the  

last nine months but you got to focus it on Q4  and by the time we reflect on it it’ll be New  

Year’s already oh I know and that’s the way this  year’s been and it’s going to be an interesting  

Q4 because the day of the the beginning of Q4  we kicked off with a massive Port strike on the  

East Coast yeah it’s just going to be a fun and  interesting one going into by the way there’s a  

toilet paper shortage oh I’m sure people will be  running into the store I was at the supermarket  

yesterday and the shelves are empty and they were  talking that people were freaking out because  

paper wasn’t going to come into the country even  though most of the toilet paper that we use comes  

is domestic so it’s domestic yeah I know used  be bread and milk now it’s toilet paper now it’s  

well it was yeah bread and toilet paper that was  always every time in in Texas when we would get an  

ice storm threat everybody would run to the store  and buy bread and toilet paper which I still don’t  

understand it all let’s let’s kick us off today  with a few fun facts about the Halloween season  

one of my favorite seasons of the Year fall and  and Halloween are definitely my favorites um and  

I found some just fun facts about Halloween so  we’ll kick off with the movie Halloween and 1978  

this thing had such a low budget that they tried  to use the cheapest mask that they could find for  

the character Michael Myers which out which  actually turned out to be a William Shatner  

Star Trek mask that they messed up a little bit  uh the funny part is he didn’t initially know and  

then now he Prides himself on that which Michael  Myers didn’t speak in the movie but I think if he  

did he would be like I’m going to kill kill  you at this point that was a good all right  

Halloween we were discussing this that Halloween  now starts in August and H gets going Halloween  

is the second highest grossing commercial holiday  after Christmas I would have gu Valentine’s Day  

nope nope not even close Halloween is right there  with Christmas at this point Ron that explains  

why it starts in August they just want to get  it going and get as much going it’s got to be  

I realized costumes but it’s got to be all the  damn candy oh I know yeah that’s the funny part  

is when they get the candy out in August I’m  like okay it’s gonna be gross by the time you  

give it out to kids and that was probably made  six months before that well I’m sure it was you  

know and shipped in now now it won’t be shipped  in from China or wherever it’s made all right the  

Guinness World Record for the heaviest pumpkin  is held by Maas it was over 2,300 lb he’s from  

Belgium I think right after that this was made  into the world’s largest bottle of pumpkin ale  

and how did they even move that without destroying  its structure no total crane thing man they just  

they have these like little sling things that they  pick them up and everything I actually went to one  

of these like competitions one time it’s insane  how big these things are you have to give it  

steroids and and like insane fertilizer no  absolutely not they don’t fertilize them  

minimal natural no what they do and it’s funny  if you actually read the book The Pumpkin plan  

by oh God I can’t think of his name same guy that  did profit first he actually talks about how they  

grow these things so they basically find they get  one of these big massive things and the reason  

like this big one where this guy makes all his  money for doing this is he sells the seeds and so  

they actually go in and they specifically sell the  seeds of these gigantic ones and then these guys  

that grow these big monster pumpkins they’ll go in  and they call like when the thing starts growing  

and they find the biggest one in their yard they  start culling all the other small ones so that  

plant can actually grow these big ginor it’s a  whole industry with these things way more than  

probably most people wanted to know all right the  names of Halloween it has been all Hallow’s Eve  

witch’s night Lamb’s wool which I haven’t figured  that one out yet I never heard that snap Apple  

snap Apple night excuse me Sam hay which is that’s  a Celtic thing and then summers’s end with the  

most creative one of them all Summer’s end at that  point that makes the most amount of sense versus  

the other ones absolutely nope I totally agree  with you and last last but not least I grew up  

most of my life in Texas so this is not something  that is and in in Mexican-American communities  

it’s a major thing but in Mexico it’s even bigger  The Day of the Dead actually the days of the dead  

because they are November 1 and November 2nd so  All Saints Day and All Souls day it is a massive  

Marty gr like party in Mexico feasts all this kind  of stuff it’s the time that the their ancest ERS  

come back and get to hang out and party with them  so it’s crazy I don’t know Phoenix do you get much  

of the theis wos or I you know what maybe I got  to pay attention I don’t remember that yeah yeah  

we don’t get much up in Austin but San Antonio  is just absolutely crazy with this because it’s  

a massive Mexican Community down there yeah it’s  interesting it’s fun it’s party well yeah it’s a  

great opportunity it’s just like Marty Gro but  like I said it in Mexico it’s like Marty gr on  

steroids let’s kick us off with a little bit about  the job situation we have covered this in the past  

but I hadn’t looked at the jolts report in a while  and so I wanted to see what the trend is and if  

you don’t know what jolts is it’s the job openings  and labor turnover Ser survey which basically  

looks at the outstanding jobs that are out there  and how many are open at this time they Peak  

around 2022 that was think of it all right here’s  the pandemic then people started going back to  

work and of course businesses are like crap we  need to hire people so there was a ton of job  

openings and they got to a point where they  just shy of about 12 and a half thousand and  

since that point they’ve been on a precipitous  run backwards which I think is normal because  

we’re you’re absorbing all these people back into  the workforce were laid off and we stepping out  

of the workforce and all that but I think the  interesting thing is this thing keeps going down  

and if you look at the long-term Trend it’s broken  that long-term downtrend at this point we had been  

on a nice steady upward trend of new jobs being  created and we’ve broken to the downside on this  

and it doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon  so that tells me that there’s less and less jobs  

so the people that were quitting because I don’t  like the way my boss looked at me today that’s not  

happening as much anymore because a lot of jobs  are just going away that had been out there and  

if you notice in 2018 and 19 we had 210 inversion  in August of 19 and you could see the market was  

slowing down then too as far as the job market  and the overall economy yeah and then obviously  

plunged Us in but once again it’s just the this  is the I think the last shoe to drop non-farm  

payroll change so this is another one that if you  look at the 2024 Trend it is not a good sign and  

remember that this period of time from about April  back for a year this was all revised massively by  

the government by 800,000 jobs spread over that  oneyear period back from March so what I would say  

is I don’t really trust TR the government’s  numbers to begin with um they have not been  

they’ve not shown that they can be trusted once  again it’s either nefarious or they’re completely  

inept which neither scenario is a good thing for  our world when you’re looking at this the trend  

ain’t good here and who knows what these things  are going to be revised to in six to eight months  

down the road we may be seeing it even worse than  it is but what it is not real great at this point  

no not not at all Trend the trend is bad trend is  not your friend and I think the next part of it  

that I started looking at this is not the this is  definitely not the the chart you want to see when  

you’ve been through massive inflation over the  last several years basically hourly earnings are  

just going down at a time when yes inflation  is muting but it it’s remember that’s still  

inflation on top of all the other inflation we’ve  had over the last four years really three years at  

this point with wages going down which is just  not a good situation to be in I think it’s why  

you’re seeing so many of these strikes going on  with typical labor negotiations go on behind the  

scenes yes there’s always the threat of strikes  and things like that but we are seeing some  

massive strikes Ron and I were talking about this  and I mentioned that Boeing Machinist are still on  

strike and he said the same thing I was thinking  earlier is that even going on because I haven’t  

even heard it mentioned it’s been going on since  August but obviously not it’s not affecting their  

production or else the stock would have I don’t  know yeah no it is affecting their production it’s  

affecting them pretty massively because they can’t  deliver they were planning on delivering like I  

think 55 more planes before the end of the year  and those are sitting sitting in various stages  

of being put together Boeing furloughed a ton of  employees outside of The Machinist side of things  

but I think the the trickle down effect and we’ll  talk about it in a minute the trickle down effects  

even worse when it comes to the other companies  that are in that supply chain for Boeing the  

biggest one of course like I led on earlier we’ve  got the international long shoreman Association  

on the East Coast that is on strike currently  has been for now three days and and the Gulf  

too and the gulf Yeah so basically from Maine  through to Texas down in Houston all of them are  

on strike right now so nothing is coming or going  from those ports it’s it is going to have some  

effect we a lot of the bigger companies had the  ability to reroute either reroute where they were  

receiving things from or they’ve been building  up so that’s a lot of these places have built  

up inventory for in anticipation of this because  they were expecting it uh but it doesn’t seem like  

just listening to the doc workers especially it  does not seem like they are willing to budge at  

the very slightest at this point I find there was  three interesting things with it number one that  

first of all the union leader is a character  oh yeah I don’t know if you’ve seen him talk  

he does he fly he talks about the poorness and  they’re not getting paid number one he wants an 88  

% something like that an 88% wage hike over the  next five years he flies in private planes yep has  

a Rolex he lives in a mansion He I’ve heard czy  sports cars not only that but I heard every day  

that they’re not working it’s costing the economy  five billion do yes something like that like these  

guys the average wage is like what $49 or $59 an  hour or something like that they say that there  

are some managers that are making 400,000 a year  and many of them have come out and said we deserve  

I’m not saying maybe they should get more not  but come on stop playing like you can’t put food  

on their table that’s exactly correct and I think  the other side of the coin is when you look at the  

efficiency of the ports and things like that which  I’ve got a slide here in a minute the efficiency  

of the ports the two worst ports in the entire  world are long Beach and La the most inefficient  

they were on strike a couple years ago yeah and  they were on strike a couple years ago and they  

all want to fight this automation because they’re  going to lose jobs and all that and if you look  

at ports like antp and things like that the pay  has gone up and they haven’t lost any jobs as  

a result of the automation but they’re just they  think that the world is going to end and maybe it  

will I don’t I really don’t know I don’t care but  it it but automation is Al safer yes and actually  

I thought the last thing is from that from that  Union head he actually said look if they don’t  

meet our demands we will [ __ ] the United States  yep how do you say something like that I when  

I’ve heard multiple of the you don’t care about  us so we don’t care about you okay you’re not  

really winning a lot of friends and influencing  people at this point interesting that AP did some  

research and on what is going to be affected most  by this and it was actually pretty interesting  

there’s not a whole lot of Industries you’ve heard  the bantering about oh toys and all that stuff 90%  

of that stuff comes out of China and that’s going  into the West Coast Port so it doesn’t really have  

that much to do on the East Coast side so the  East Coast side the things that are going to  

be affected most are foot foot looger or Footwear  is going to be probably affected the most because  

there’s a lot of that comes out of Europe and even  some parts of Africa and what they were saying was  

auto parts are going to be a massive part of it  because a lot of that’s produced in Europe and  

that’s going to whack a lot of this and of course  they just even coming out of China they’ll go into  

the East Coast ports just to keep that distributed  evenly so that’s when they’re say depending on how  

long this goes uh it’ll create inflation because  of the lack of supply yeah exactly and and we’re  

back to the pandemic of okay I need a part for my  car I remember I had to get a some body work done  

on a car when the pandemic was happening and it  took them we were driving a rental car for about  

three weeks waiting on a bumper to come from  which I would have thought would have come from  

Detroit because it’s a it’s an American car but  apparently came from somewhere else in the world  

and they couldn’t get their hands on it at the  time and took forever last but not least this is  

just one one of the companies that supplies Boeing  um and a vast majority of those once again this is  

gone below the radar nobody’s talking about it  but there are companies literally 100% shut down  

because they’re in the supply chain for Boeing  so what’s happening with those guys affects a lot  

more bodies Downstream from there and these folks  aren’t protected by a union at that point that’s  

paying for them out of a strike fund they’re  just literally on unemployment at this point  

which royally sucks for them and going into the  end of the year unless this thing gets fixed these  

guys are going to be hurting pretty bad and they  probably already are what is not affected the the  

funny part is I’ve heard so much about oh my God  this is happening during the the harvest season  

and how this is going to affect first off we don’t  export a lot of crap out of this country to begin  

with but some of the biggest things we export are  bulk grain none of that goes through the ports  

that are affected most of the other stuff this  goes through bulk grain shippers a lot of times  

those are employed by the the companies that do  a lot of this stuff so they’re employees of and  

not necessarily members and they’re not members  of the ILS the whatever it is il whatever so  

they’re not members of it so a lot of the bulk  grains are not going to be affected at all the  

only thing that’s container shipped is soybeans  largely which is another major export for us and  

those are going to be sitting around for a while  and so last but not least I wanted to share with  

you the most efficient ports in the world and if  you’ll notice there’s not a dang one of these that  

are United States ports um ours are all in the  bottom 25% of the world um China uh amazingly in  

the Middle East their ports are efficient as  hell because they’ve put a lot of money into  

automation to make them that way and of course  China Japan all those places that honestly these  

are some of these are not huge kaha is a big city  but it’s not a massive Port but Yokohama is a big  

son of a gun I think about all the corruption and  whatever and it’s still efficient yeah the funny  

thing is like kaha it used to be when I was down  there in the military in the 80s yeah it was a  

lot of corruption it’s really not so much anymore  there’s still some corruption but it’s a pretty  

efficiently Run Country right now it’s actually  a pretty cool place to go you don’t have to worry  

about people killing you anymore like you used to  have to worry about but yeah you start looking at  

that and it’s Middle East China and and north or  the northern part of South America that are the  

top players in this and Yokohama Japan so maybe  we could learn a little bit from these guys but  

I don’t from what I’m hearing I don’t not as  long as the union leader involved yeah I was  

going to say I don’t think as long as those guys  are involved in this they are just not willing to  

to budge at all they want everything and they want  to give nothing so it’s you’re either GNA have to  

give in on one or the other but I think they see  themselves as well we we control everything in  

this negotiation and and one-sided negotiations  never work in your favor and remember the UPS one  

of the first mandates they wanted last year was  we wanted full pay for a 4-day work week yeah that  

didn’t happen yeah and that’s the funny one for a  four-day work week okay you guys deliver six days  

a week so how exactly are we gonna make this work  everybody’s gonna work four days and we’ve got a  

bend over 0% of your pay yeah nope I’m sorry  you’re not getting it so it it’s interesting  

to me I believe in unions I believe there’s  a place for but it just seems like they get  

greedier and GE and it’s okay the Auto Workers  got a 40% pay raise so we want to double that  

amount and you’re remember they have no risk  yeah they have no risk if business goes down  

30% they still want their raise yep they have  no risk that’s exactly right there’s nothing in  

there that’s fluid with the Union to say okay I  know the company is hurting so instead of laying  

off people we’ll take a pay cut never happened  nope not going to happen and they’re not going  

to let them lay people off either that’s the funny  part is that I remember doing some work when I was  

with Fidelity I worked with the auto plant up  in in Oklahoma City and they had shut the auto  

plant down in I want to say 2001 2002 somewhere  in there and because of the Union contract there  

were still guys that were employed if they had  if they didn’t get a job someplace else that was  

either equivalent to or better than what they  had before on the union thing GM still had to  

keep them employed inside of a plant that was  basically closed at that point and so they just  

came to work every day and read the newspaper  some of these contracts are just really weird  

when it comes to being able to lay people off  so it’s just it’s interesting and if they can  

get it great that’s fine but it’s goingon to but  eventually we pay for it yeah we are going to pay  

for it when your wages are basically doubling  over a five to six year period so thanks folks  

for joining us as always thanks r on for being on  and as always make sure that you connect with us  

make sure that you subscribe to the channel  and we will be back here the very next time