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Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

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Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#211

Post by rcpt »

warent wrote: post #118
grey-area wrote: post #112

A global recession is coming against a backdrop of the Fed raising rates, that is going to be very painful. A lot of people here don't seem to realise this is the case or are in denial. This is a bubble bursting, this is serious. Lots of companies are laying off workers or at least freezing hiring because they anticipate earnings cratering, or are already seeing it happen. They haven't reported on it yet, but they wi…

EDIT: Thank you all for generously sharing your time in writing up such thoughtful answers. -- Would love to hear more on your perspective / insight. This is all intentional, right? My understanding is that the fed is leaning into this particularly hard in order to dislodge the stubborn housing bubble. For an individual (someone who isn't a current business owner), does this basically mean we should continue stockpil…

> dislodge the stubborn housing bubble.

God I wish we could just do a Land Value Tax and be done with it. It wouldn't hurt the economy and might even create more work.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#212

Post by mullingitover »

Spartan-S63 wrote: post #193
grey-area wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it seems like overall, and especially in lower-wage jobs, employment is still humming along and people are very much not getting laid off. There will not be a soft landing. When has there ever been a soft landing and how would raising rates into a recession ever result in one? Raising rates takes 1 year to come through to the real economy - we haven't even seen the impact yet, only on stock prices which foreshado…

I really wish we had other tools than the Fed at our disposal. Legislation could be passed to create surtaxes on profits that exceed the current rate of inflation to help curb the inflation spiral. Likewise, we could pass legislation restricting the ability of private banks to grant lines of credit (so as to shrink the money supply on the supply-side rather than the demand-side). Either way, it would be nice to see t…

> I really wish we had other tools than the Fed at our disposal.

The fed is basically a team of scientists when it comes to monetary policy, and meanwhile congress is essentially warring factions of drunk, catty sorority girls when it comes to fiscal policy. It's unfortunate.

If instead of the massive tax cut passed in 2017 we had passed a 2 trillion dollar infrastructure spending bill (and I'm talking 2 trillion in additional infra spending, not the watered-down "1 trillion" that included routine spending) we could've been on a solid footing for supply capacity that could've fought inflation without targeted killing of the working class.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#213

Post by jupp0r »

abirch wrote: post #207
jupp0r wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retirement doesn't explain the economy adding 230k jobs. Retirement leads to the same jobs being backfilled. Housing market is a completely different discussion. Interest rates rising of course lead to price drops here. I'll start worrying about a recession once GDP falls and jobs are eliminated instead of added from the economy.

Retirement explains the low unemployment % since they're no longer part of the workforce. The jobs added are great, especially since we need ~140K additional jobs per month due to the growing US Population. (that number probably dropped due to reduced immigration) Unfortunately I don't work in all sectors of America so even if the GDP goes up to a China-inflated 10% or higher but I'm unemployed, it'll suck.

Sure but that doesn't mean there will be a recession. Sometimes it's just necessary to switch fields (ie horseshoe makers when automobiles were getting popular).

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#214

Post by umeshunni »

rippercushions wrote: post #192
tempsy wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

total revolving consumer credit aka credit card debt is a straight line up going to hit $1 trillion soon for the first time. seems not great in face of high interest rates. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CCLACBW027SBOG

And that doesn't even include the explosion in Buy Now Pay Later services like Afterpay, which are very much debt but likely don't show up in the report.

But those are generally shorter term loans

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#216

Post by andsoitis »

pm90 wrote: post #205
madrox wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my initial take six months ago, but I've come to realize this is about runways. Imagine you just lost your job. First thing you'd want to do is get some idea of how long it'll be until you can get another one, then look at your budget and cash on hand to make sure you can pay the bills. If you don't, you have the options of borrowing money (which is hard and a bad deal in these circumstances) or selling some…

Amazon and Meta are at 0 risk of running out of money. They make billions in profits. Smaller companies that are still not generating profits? Absolutely they need cuts to survive. Both of these things are true at the same time. I’m continually surprised at how quickly people have bought the excuse trotted out by extremely profitable companies for mass layoffs. In that situation it is primarily an exercise in juicing…

> Amazon and Meta are at 0 risk of running out of money. They make billions in profits.

Companies don’t try to break even, they try to make money because higher ROI means you’re more valuable.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#217

Post by themitigating »

ryanSrich wrote: post #195
themitigating wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The media and government is in denial, so they'd tell you we aren't even in a recession yet." There are costant headlines about layoffs. Also you said that a recession has a defintion, if that hasn't happened how is the media and government in denial?

Like I said in my comment, it did happen. This summer we hit 2 quarters of negative GDP growth. At the time, and even now, the media is suddenly moving the goal posts and trying to redefine what a recession is.

Because there isn't an official definition of a recession. That two quarter isn't a government metric.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#218

Post by zwilliamson »

I’d be curious to get Peter Zeihan’s thoughts on this. Flexport’s business is built around globalization and trade. What if Peter is right and we are seeing it all unravel before our eyes right now? Trading paradigms shifting to regional groups of countries. I wonder if this is on the radar for companies like Flexport

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_World_Is_Just...

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#219

Post by bogomipz »

rcpt wrote: post #211
warent wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Thank you all for generously sharing your time in writing up such thoughtful answers. -- Would love to hear more on your perspective / insight. This is all intentional, right? My understanding is that the fed is leaning into this particularly hard in order to dislodge the stubborn housing bubble. For an individual (someone who isn't a current business owner), does this basically mean we should continue stockpil…

> dislodge the stubborn housing bubble. God I wish we could just do a Land Value Tax and be done with it. It wouldn't hurt the economy and might even create more work.

>"God I wish we could just do a Land Value Tax and be done with it."

Can you say what this is and how it would address the housing situation?

The housing bubble certainly is a slow moving one at this point. It seems like there's still not a lot of inventory and prices are still at historic highs. Prices haven't come down although price growth has slowed. It's really quite bizarre. We're a mobile a society though, eventually people have to move for various reasons. Maybe people are going to hold on their mortgage and rent the house instead of selling? It's hard to see how all this plays out.

Re: Flexport slashes 20% of global workforce over weak 2023 volume forecast

#220

Post by umeshunni »

anm89 wrote: post #99
crote wrote: post #89

Wow, that's a huge surprise. I hadn't heard of Flexport before, but they seem to be focused on global shipping. The company I work for ships almost all of its products internationally, and we have seen a massive price hike over the last 2-3 years. Some of it necessary due to rising costs, but we know for a fact that larger-volume customers are still getting lower prices. Additionally, the well-known carriers still of…

The market right now is FAR from overheated. In fact maritime shipping is collapsing right now. https://www.drewry.co.uk/supply-chain-advisors/supply-chain-... Both volume and rates are down roughly 80% YOY.

I understand why rates are collapsing. Why is demand / volume collapsing now? Because of slowdowns in China?
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