➡ The CEO of Home Depot, Ted Decker, has expressed concern about the current economic situation, noting that high interest rates are making it difficult for people to spend money, especially on big projects. This, along with the high cost of real estate, is causing a decrease in consumer spending. Meanwhile, other businesses like McDonald’s and Subway are also feeling the pinch, with rising food costs leading to increased prices for customers. The situation is further complicated by layoffs in companies like Starbucks and Frito-Lay, and the closure of Advanced Auto Parts stores, indicating a potential recession.
➡ Prices are staying high and wages aren’t increasing, leading to more work for less pay. The jobless claims are higher than expected and the cost of housing is becoming unaffordable for many, threatening the middle-class dream of home ownership. Meanwhile, Japan is trying to address its low birth rate by introducing a four-day work week. The video also mentions a private channel called iAllegedly Live for further discussions.

Hey, it’s Dan. Welcome back. You’re watching IAllegedly, and I’ve got a good one for you today because we’re getting all these different warnings. Home Depot, JP Morgan, CNN, a little bit of everybody. And please hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, but let’s get right into it. Home Depot had their earnings call and was talking about how the average person is challenged right now, and what they’re challenged with is that it’s very difficult to spend money when interest rates are so high. This is why they’re putting up high-end projects, which is nonsense, guys.

It has nothing to do with that. Interest rates have been high for a couple years. Now you’re feeling it? It’s ridiculous. So Home Depot knows this, and the one thing that nobody wants to admit is the recession work. Recession is here, guys. We’ve been in it. What do you think this is? Now we’re starting to get these numbers where people don’t want to admit that this is happening. But Ted Decker is the CEO. In the fourth quarter earnings, you know, hey, sales were up, the profits were down. Big projects were off. People buying onesies, twosies, pieces of lumber, that’s still there.

But people buying stuff to build a house, build an addition, it’s not there right now. So with that being said, Billy Blastic is the director of merchandising over at Home Depot, and this guy steps forward and just says, listen, you know, we’ve got to do something about interest rates to fix this. No, guys, the high price of real estate, which is one thing he talked about, that this is a problem. People are starting to realize how expensive homes are, and the average person can’t afford this. Guys, no kidding. No kidding. Now, here’s the thing.

You know, everybody’s making money. Everybody’s, everybody rich is going to tell you how great everything is. But when rich people start shopping at Walmart, and the highest increase in the shopping percentage is rich people, wealthy people, that says a lot, guys. It really, really does. I’m at the beach club at a place called Bimini Island, which is nice. It’s nice birthday relaxation. You know, good old Jamie Dimon, man of the people. He just sold 266 million dollars worth of Chase stock. And I’m telling you, you want to watch something funny. You see a headline about Jamie Dimon talking about people coming back to the office.

They’re gonna start firing people left and right, but it’s great because of how pissed off this guy gets. He’s not his cool, you know, common collected Jamie Dimon. But you know, he is one of these people talking about, you know, don’t give Donald Trump a hard time. Let Donald Trump, let this play out and see what happens. Let’s see if tariffs happen. Let’s see what he’s gonna do before you pass judgment on this because we need a fix in the economy. This guy needs a fix in the economy. You need people to borrow money.

You need people to expand. You need people to promote businesses and do different things that require credit, require money. And that’s not happening right now. So that’s a major issue. CNN. CNN sat there and did a warning. The average person is concerned about good old recessions. And with the recession, people are starting to not spend money. Now, one thing about the vacation is when I cocked everybody. Hey, are people buying more drinks? No. Are they shopping more in the stores? No. Are they out, you know, paying for the extra excursions? No. I met a couple who said that on the cruise ship, that they had the chance to bid for like better cabins.

Not like, hey, here’s the, you know, what would you pay for this? What would you pay to be moved up two levels to not wait in line to have stuff like that? And they were like, yeah, you know, it was like 500 bucks. And I’m like, well, what is it normally? About three grand? So even the cruise ships understand how there’s not everybody’s out spending money like they should right now. So it’s fascinating though. So people are getting fed up with the economy. We are fed up with it. We’re fed up with McDonald’s costing an absolute fortune.

And thank God for Dr. Marvin. Dr. Marvin sent me the greatest story talking about how there’s going to be massive bankruptcies to continue in the restaurant space. So here’s the thing. You’re in the restaurant space and you’ve got places like Ruby Tuesdays, Denny’s, who else, TGI Fridays, all these restaurants that are in serious trouble right now, and that that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You’re going to see more restaurants go out of business, but you’re also going to see that there’s going to be more bankers. He said, nobody plans. The average person does not want to go out and spend $25 for a combo meal at McDonald’s.

You know, McDonald’s issued this big statement. Hey, we’re not going to raise egg prices. We’re not going to have a higher price per egg, which is okay, thanks. They’re going to now have something on the app where you’re going to be able to get a $1 Egg McMuffin if you use the app. I think that is the most insane thing. Why would I order from an app if I’m in the drive-through? And I’m going to film, next time I go to McDonald’s, I’m going to film that. Hey, hi, will you be using the app today? Well, I’m here.

No. Well, what am I going to get from the app? Hi, I’m going to order by the app. It’s insane. So that’s what they’re doing. Subway is hurting. Subway announced that they’re going to have a $6.99 foot lock. Not $5.99, but they’re bringing it back next month. So you’re going to be able to get the $6.99 football. You need a football at Subway. It’s about what they taste like. But anyways, you’re going to be able to go and go to Subway and get a $6.99 football. Who cares? You know, seriously, no one’s sitting there, oh, God, I got to get to Subway here.

This is crazy. No, no one’s doing that right now. But overall, people are spending less right now. Eggs are outrageous. Eggs saw a great story about how eggs could go up as much as 40 percent. 40 percent right now. And that’s guys from where they’re at. So haven’t seen the end of it yet, guys. I’ve not seen the end of it even close yet. I’m just walking around trying to avoid all the music. It’s a beautiful spot, guys. It’s February and it’s 85 degrees out here. So just beautiful. Just a great spot to get a little beach cabana area where you can stay away from everybody.

You know, and just be by yourself and not have the dance music and all that stuff blaring. But beautiful, guys. It’s nice. So looking forward to going home. Had a really great birthday. Again, all the I just appreciate all the thoughtful and caring wishes that you guys sent us. And so much is happening right now that I can’t wait to share with you guys. Now, there’s more layoffs that you’re hearing about and Starbucks with their 1,100 people. Frito-Lay, owned by Pepsi, they’re getting rid of a distribution center in New York state that’s going to lay off almost 300 people in their corner pop division.

You know, those are the like it’s almost like popcorn that they form into chips. Cells really well, but can’t afford to pay the facility. It’s not enough to sustain it. So, again, you’re going to see things like this over and over again. But just it’s just a matter of time. Advanced auto parts, they’re definitely closing their 700 stores, 700 guys, two distribution centers. They’re done. I haven’t been doing advanced auto parts that I can remember, but people are not fixing their own cars. People are putting off maintenance. They’re putting off doing anything high and high end home improvements, maintenance.

And again, when you do this, all it does is cost you more money down the road. Big business right now that is flourishing is roof restoration. People that want to, hey, we’ll spray your roof with this stuff and it’s going to make it last longer, five years longer. So you don’t have to buy a new roof. Now, some people are trying to sell the house with that. Who knows if this is going to work, but it’s just the beginning of that. The other thing is the inverted yield curve. The 10 year treasury bills have a lower interest rate than the three month treasury bills.

And people say this is the sign of a massive recession coming. But haven’t we heard that? I mean, you guys are sick of me saying it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming. You need to be ready for this guys. You need to be ready. I spoke with a friend of mine about this great report that he wrote. I cannot wait to share it with you in regards to golden relationship to the economy. And it’s just going to be more important than ever. So a lot to cover on that, but it’s going to be very, very fascinating to see how this all plays out because inflation’s here.

It’s not coming down anytime soon. You’re going to see prices stay high. Your wages are not going to go up right now. And for those of you independent people were saying, you know, can you do one more thing? I met a PR lady last night who I said, are you experiencing this problem where five years ago, you would do this thing for a client and then they would pay you for that. And now you’re expected to do this, this social media post, put together videos, break the videos down, and we’re going to do it all for the same price.

She said, absolutely. It’s more for less. Don’t do that, guys. Do everything you can to avoid that and do everything you can to say that would require an additional charge because I’m telling you they want you to do things for free. And this is what’s expected. If you don’t do it, somebody else will. Quality, good price, good value means something in this world. Remember that. A few things to end this video. I want to remind you that we have a private channel called iAllegedly Live and you signed up at iAllegedly.TV. It’s fantastic. It’s everything we can’t talk about here in other places.

So check that out today. Jobless claims were supposed to come in at $225,000 and came in at $242,000. First time jobless claims, which is a lot, guys. And now one thing you’re going to start getting is you’re going to stop, you’re going to stop seeing the adjusted numbers. They’re going to come out and they’re going to stick around. You may see a move a little bit, but you’re not going to see what we’ve seen over the last two years. It’s just not going to happen. So there’s that, you know, the middle class dream of home ownership is basically slipping away right now, regardless of where you live in the country.

People cannot afford housing right now and it is a huge problem. And we’ve talked about this, but great article out of the hedge talking about just how bad it is and how is the American dream dead? Is the middle class dead? I think I think people are just wiped out. And my girlfriend and I were talking about, you know, not having to take care of kids right now, how difficult that would be. And, you know, feeding them and everything. It’s just crazy the expense that goes on to these families. And for those of you grandparents that are taking care of your grandkids on a full time basis, you know this.

You know, Alan is 81. Alan wrote me about how he wants to work and how he needs to work right now to stay active. I mean, I love stories like this. Send them to me. My email address is Hello What I Allegedly. Love all the news that you guys send me. Final, final story out of Japan, of all places. This Fortune magazine wrote about how Japan sees a problem with its birth rate and people not having kids. Well, they promoted this for decades. Don’t have kids, have one kid, have one kid. Now you have an aging population that majority of the people are older and young kids don’t want to have kids.

So what are they going to do? They’re going to give people a four day work week. This is going to motivate you to make out with your wife. Now, maybe she’s not into you, dude. Maybe she wants you on that fifth day. But the point is, is that is this going to work? Is this the thing? Are they going to say, oh, my gosh, the four day work week produced more children? I don’t know. I have no clue. I think that this one, this one’s kind of far fetched to me. But, you know, other companies have tried this.

Other companies argued with this, you know, let’s do four days of 10 hour days and not call them over time. All this stuff that we’ve seen over the past. So let me know what you think on everything. Send those stories over. And a lot of cool stuff that we’re going to announce very shortly. So hit the like button, subscribe to the channel, and I will see you guys very soon. [tr:trw].

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