➡ Progressive Furniture, a competitor of IKEA, is closing after 40 years due to financial struggles. The company faced production issues after a labor dispute with their main supplier, Baja Wood, and CEO Dan Hendrick claims that people can’t afford furniture or even basic living costs anymore. The company will lay off hundreds of employees but promises to fulfill all existing orders. This situation highlights the current economic difficulties many people are facing, with rising prices and shrinking wages making it hard for them to afford even basic necessities.
➡ Chiquita Bananas is facing a major strike and has laid off hundreds of workers, leading to a potential banana shortage and price increase. Meanwhile, a man attempted to sell a stolen truck to a dealership but was caught due to a discrepancy in the VIN number. Despite economic struggles, wealthy neighborhoods continue to see construction and remodeling. Finally, Procter & Gamble plans to cut 7,000 jobs due to decreased consumer spending.

Hey, it’s Dan. Welcome back. This is IAllegedly. And I’ve got a good one for you today because people have no money for anything. Hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, make sure you sign up for our email list because one is going out eminently. Okay? So you don’t want to miss the email. Wow. There is a company called Progressive Furniture. That is an IKEA competitor. And the CEO Dan Hendrick steps forward and says, people have no money. People have no money for furniture. People cannot afford to live right now. And they’re closing after 40 years in business.

40 years, guys. And it’s unbelievable. When you read the stories below, it is shocking because the company had a deal with a company called Baja Wood. Baja Wood was located in Mexico and they manufactured well over 60% of their products. And then they had a labor dispute with them. People wouldn’t work. And let’s do this. What happens when you have a labor dispute in Mexico? What do they do? Well, I learned something new. They shut the factory down and they interviewed every single employee. And there were hundreds of them. So with that being said, it caused a major rift with production.

And they could not get product in a timely fashion and could not get it delivered. But it brings up the point of this video and that is that Mr. Hendrick said, people cannot afford to live right now. A few years ago, a hamburger used to be $7. Now it’s $17. They cannot afford furniture right now. They’re doing without things right now. I’m doing a little expose right now on shrinkflation. My cousin, who travels the country, he’s got a great job working in security. He used to be a school teacher, then a school administrator. And this guy’s got the coolest job in the world for safety.

But I can get into that some other time. But he was talking about how just everything is ridiculous. You buy a bag of chips and there’s nothing in it. But do you need the chips? That’s the problems that people are doing without right now. So with that being said, you’re seeing more and more people that can’t afford things like furniture, can’t afford the idea of furniture. Now, when Progressive first started complaining about prices and things like that, they came up and said, hey, listen, this is the tariffs. Well, the tariffs haven’t happened. The threat of a tariff of 25% has nothing to do with existing orders.

But this company is going to lay off hundreds of people this year. And with the hundreds of people losing their jobs, they’re talking about cutting everything back. And if you’ve placed a custom order with them, you will get your product. And it will be delivered between now and the end of the year. That’s going to happen. Now, once again, nobody can afford anything right now. Think about this one. You know, I hate tipping culture. Can’t stand it. I tip for good service. I tip the individual. And I appreciate when people go above and beyond what they’re supposed to do.

And I pay them handsomely for that. I have no problem with that. Here’s one for you. Linda Matheson, sore shoulder, goes to buy CBD rubbing oil. And a check out wants to give a $5 tip. The only problem was she gave them $5,000. $5,000. Didn’t have a decimal point in there and gave them $5,000. Oh, well, sorry about that. Well, I can’t afford this. Oh, but there’s no way to correct it. Sorry. He gave us $5,000 as a tip. Now, who would believe that? Now, Linda went back, checked her bank account. And, of course, they took the $5,000 off her account.

And she’s like, what am I going to do? Goes back to the business. They go, we never got that. That’s a lie. We never got it. So there’s a dispute over that. But I’m telling you guys, check to make sure people get what they’re supposed to get. I always ask, I’m going to go to a stadium. And, you know, here’s $5 for the burger. Here’s the tip. Okay. Do you guys get these? When do you get them? And like the stadium, everybody’s told me they get them every other week. And a lot of stadiums will do this where they get them paid separately.

So you’ll have a separate check with tips on it, which I thought was cool. So again, imagine leaving a $5,000 tip for somebody. Unbelievable. So San Rafael, California is where that happened. It’s a beautiful morning out here. Nice. Just lovely. This is the cliffs above Corona del Mar. You know, one thing that we’ve seen in Walmart and different stores, department stores, sometimes they’ll have a food outlet in there. And you may go into, you know, the Neiman Market store, and they have their own outlet. Nordstroms, Macy’s, places like that. Well, now, you know, Walmart has those fast food places.

They used to have it nationally. Well, what they’ve done now is because it’s such a problem with McDonald’s and with Burger King and all these other places that they’re doing dozens of locations now with people. The latest store chain to get this is a wiener stencil, the hot dog place. Going to see if it’s going to work out. If people like this, if it sells good, then we will add additional stories to them. So we’ll save. And again, people have no money. Roker Aaron sent me another great story. Now, the story he sent me was from the industry magazine code star, which is a real estate magazine.

And the story that he wrote me was that, look at how depressing the sale was, Dan. You know, you’ve got $177 million for something that sold for $722 million, you know, 10 years ago. So a losing proposition for real estate. Now, what does San Francisco do? They advertise this as, this is great news. Everybody’s doing great. This is a great big transaction. It’s a big transaction of failure, guys. It’s not good to sit there and say that $177 million sale is a big deal when, in fact, they were upside down. I mean, they lost, you know, almost $600 million in this transaction.

So once again, guys, you know, here’s the thing. Guy like Roker Aaron, you know, you want to hire a guy like that to do your real estate transaction, because he’s been around the block. And does he make a commission? Hell, yes, he does. But he also, the point is, is that you’re also buying a guy’s knowledge like that. That guy that knows real estate, that knows transactions, that’s who you want to hire. Hire a guy like Aaron Smiles, because this guy looks at this and it’s, look at this, Dan. What a joke this is.

But if you’re in San Francisco, which is a war zone, which might as well be Beirut or Ukraine, as far as I’m concerned, it’s unsafe right now. And they’re trying to advertise this as, this is one of the largest transactions of the year. It’s one of the largest failures of the year, of the decade. Don’t forget that. It’s an absolute disaster and there’s no way around it. But again, everybody’s doing great, guys. It’s all good. Fortune Brands, that owns Moen and Masterlock, they’re relocating and want to have the entire company move to Illinois. Isn’t that great? Chicago area, it’ll be beautiful.

No, 25% of the employees have passed. Why? Because it’s San Francisco light. It is a disaster. It is a war zone. It is horrible and the weather sucks. Okay? Snow is fun for one hour. Remember that? One hour. My buddy, he used to live there. He followed a woman from Newport Beach, from here, where I’m at, to Chicago and said nothing’s worse than having to get up and start your car 45 minutes early and have to shovel snow just to leave the driveway. Get kids to school. Get out of here. And then you get divorced and she takes three quarters of your stuff.

That’s a story for another day, but I love the CEO. Hey, we’re really happy with the number of people that showed up. What a liar. What an absolute joke. People don’t want to relocate and live in Chicago. They don’t. They just don’t. Silver has jumped in price to the highest level in 13 years, guys. 13 years. You want to buy something, get a good investment, hold on to it. Silver demand is not going down. People, the industrial uses are only increasing right now. They’re going up. But again, we don’t have a sponsor on this video, but take a look at Silver, guys.

It’s very inexpensive in getting that. So do yourself a favor and get that. Costco is adding something new that we’ve talked about in the past. And, you know, they’re going to have the automatic scanners. You’re going to walk underneath and you’re going to register your payment method when you enter the store and then it’s automatically going to charge you. So the beauty of this is that there’s going to be no more waiting. Now, some people hate that. I’m trying to think, well, who would hate this? Costco is no nonsense. When you buy anything and they look, I’ve never seen anybody get out of there without them checking their receipt.

And last week I saw a woman that had two items in her basket that she was carrying out, and they said, no, no, no. Those aren’t on there. You’ve got to go back and ring those up. And I left before I found out what happened, but they don’t mess around with this. So an automatic scanner to scan your merchandise, I don’t know why that would be such an issue with some people. Chiquita bananas has a major strike. They laid off hundreds of people earlier this year, and they’re saying now there’s going to be a banana shortage because people cannot afford the bananas and now they’re laying off another 1,200 banana pickers right now.

Hey, guys, let me see if I can refresh your memory on something. This isn’t like cutting a tree down and the wood can sit there. This is a banana. The banana’s going to go bad, and these people have to understand that it’s just a matter of time until the stuff starts rotting. But what’s going to happen to you and I is if you want to have a banana, it’ll go from 50 cents a banana to $8 a banana. So check it out. Chiquita banana laying off all its employees because of a labor dispute.

So people are upset about the work conditions. People are upset about the same thing we have here. Our hours are being cut. We’re asked to do more for the same amount of money. When does it end? When does it end? It’s the same thing for everybody, guys. It’s not just one place that’s got a problem. It’s everywhere. So with that, you’re starting to see more and more people that are fed up with it. I’m up on Ocean Boulevard in Cronet, Omar. Look at all this construction up here. It’s crazy. Remember the super rich, guys.

It’s a $20 million neighborhood. Super rich. They’re remodeling. They’re adding on to their houses. They’re not stopping. Everybody is going ahead with their construction. Look at this. Everything faces the water. There’s your backyard right there. So people aren’t cutting back up here. You’ll see construction. They’ll rip it down to one wall, call it a remodel, and continue to build. Crazy, crazy. There was a dealership in St. George, Utah, and a man walked in. Marcelo Palazzo walks in with a Duramax Dodge truck. Hey, I want to sell it. What would you guys give me for it? And they go back and forth and figure out they’re going to give them $51,000.

Great, great news. That sounds good. The only problem was one of the employees noticed that there was a number off on the VIN number off the window for the car itself. He just memorized the last four digits. And thank God for this guy because the employee saved this dealership $51,000 because the truck was stolen out of California, and then they drive it other places. Well, Mr. Palazzo goes to get his check the next day. And sure enough, they have him arrested. And he’s got three other guys in the car. And the three other men in the car had another check from another dealership for another $40,000.

And they almost had, you know, it worked out to be like $96,000 worth of, you know, cars that they had stolen. And again, changing the VIN numbers just enough to modify it so it can’t be found. Here in California, it’s one thing about our DMV is that that’s pretty sophisticated. And by the way, here’s another three-story house being built in the cliff right here that they’re working on. This one they’ve worked on for a very long time. It’s hooked my head in there. And again, guys, if you have dough, ray me, no problem, man.

These people are just remodeling and doing it like it’s nothing. I used to dream I want to live on Ocean Boulevard. Now, if you ever come out here on the weekends, nope, done. This weekend is the big 5K run, and they shut the street down. You can’t drive in and out of here. Imagine you live in your street, and you’ve got a nice weekend plan with the kids. Oh, you can’t come that week because they have the 5K, and we can’t get in and out of our house. And that happens. So unbelievable, guys. Final, final story for you.

And again, all the final, final story. This is out of the New York Times, and I love this one. With all the vacation spots this year, will people come? Will they show up? Will this be another hot summer of having a good time? I don’t think so, guys. I think you’re going to see more people stay home. I think you’re going to see some people are going to travel. Some people are unaffected by what’s going on in the world right now. They’re not trying to relocate. Oh, speaking of that, you know what’s funny? It’s my buddy that I told you guys that he had lost his job, and I’ve had people write, and he’s over 50.

He’s never going to find a job. This is the thing about this, is that my friends are all very talented. I have a lot of retired friends, but a lot of friends that are my age. But as I took him to lunch yesterday to talk to him and give him the same pep talk he gave me at one point in life, he had three phone calls of job offers during that time. Hey, man, we heard they got rid of you. What were they thinking? Okay, well, let’s talk. I’m taking the week off, so call me next week.

And again, he’ll land on his feet, and he’ll land on his feet to make more money, and he won’t be traveling, and he won’t be doing anything, because we talked about it. The older we get, you know, this is basically, you’ve got to look at this as your last job, I would say. So what’s that going to be, and I love coming up here. Nice, guys. Same street, guys. Isn’t that crazy? So we’ve got the private little beach down there. Oh. Final, final, final tidbit sent by the one and only Dr. Marvin, and that is Procter & Gamble going to cut 7,000 jobs.

7,000 jobs. Guys, I mean, that’s crazy. You know, they’re going to eliminate brands, and the 7,000 jobs will save them well over a billion dollars in cutbacks. But again, guys, what do they cite? Nobody has any money. Nobody’s buying anything. You know, brand loyalty, what’s that worth anymore? I think it’s worth nothing right now. I think it’s ridiculous that you get all these brands that are just cutting back, but when you get furniture companies, and you get bananas, and you get everything that’s going to walk by a tree, that’s something real good for these beautiful plants at these houses.

So again, Procter & Gamble, 7,000 jobs. And they do this, you know, Deutsche Bank, who does the financing for them, says this is necessary for the survival of the company and the health and well-being, and it’ll take two to three years to fix it. But again, people have no money, and that’s what you’re experiencing. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, it’s everything. You can blame tariffs, you can blame the new administration. The furniture company blamed the new administration, said they can’t blame them because of the tariffs having kicked in yet, but they’ve had struggles for the last two to three years, and then when they’re fighting with their suppliers, that had to come out too.

Don’t forget to hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, and if you have $17 to $25 million, you can help me live on this street. Anyways, I wouldn’t want to live here anymore, just because come here on the weekends, guys. You can’t find a parking spot, because it’s not for the people that live here. It’s from everybody else coming to the beach. I like privacy. I’ll see you soon. Hit the like button. Subscribe. Email me hello at iallegedly.com. I’ll see you very soon. [tr:trw].

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