Category: Politics, Religion & Money

Ghosted by Ghosts?

Job applicants who never hear back are applying for positions that don’t exist.

Among those who said they advertised job postings that they weren’t actively trying to fill, close to half said they kept the ads up to give the impression the company was growing.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-plum-job-listing-may-just-be-a-ghost-3aafc794?mod=hp_lead_pos12

This raises some questions and concerns. Is the Bureau of Labor Statistics getting accurate information? The Fed is basing its interest rate decisions in part on the “robust job market.”

Speaking of ghosts. When Hanna-Barbera in Los Angeles was at its early peak, Famous Studios in New York was doing better limited animation for television. Wendy performs “The Red Shoes.”

Mayberry, RFD Medicine

A fairly regular topic here is the crisis in rural healthcare. In the fifteen years I was traveling for my old job, I visited many small, regional hospitals. That part of my working life ended in the mid-90’s, and since then the difficulties in providing medical care in rural America, for both acute and chronic conditions, have gotten much worse. The PBS NewsHour has started a series on the difficulties facing administrators, clinicians, and patients.

Interest in Banking

Frontline has this timely report called ‘Age of Easy Money’.

My position is that the Fed needs to add a third mandate to its duty of maximizing employment while keeping inflation in check. It’s my contention that to meet those two goals, the “other inflation” — Wall Street — also needs to be kept in check. Otherwise, you end up with what we have now. Neel Kashkari has exactly the opposite opinion, as heard at this point in the documentary.

There’s an implicit threat in what Kashkari says, as if he’s speaking on behalf of investment bankers — Hurt the rich people on Wall Street, in any way at all, and regular people will suffer.

Failure’s Fallout

Comments on LinkedIn from Silicon Valley Bank ex-employees, reacting to the bank’s failure. They’ve been abruptly and unexpectedly forced into social networking searches for new jobs, and LinkedIn is the best place to do that. So you won’t see more than the very faintest hints of negativity.

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/svb-employees-react-to-its-fall-6207514/

Planet Money provides its after-the-fact analysis of what happened:

Economist Paul Krugman has this comment:

Just a few years ago, S.V.B. was one of the midsize banks that lobbied successfully for the removal of regulations that might have prevented this disaster, and the tech sector is famously full of libertarians who like to denounce big government right up to the minute they themselves needed government aid.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/opinion/silicon-valley-bank-bailout.html

Here’s something that should surprise absolutely no one:

Silicon Valley Bank CEO Greg Becker sold $3.6 million of company stock two weeks before the bank reported massive losses in the run up to the bank’s implosion, according to regulatory filings.

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/14/1163366706/justice-department-opens-probe-into-silicon-valley-bank-after-its-sudden-collaps