Consumer Confidence, Jobs, Spending, What's a Waabi, and Headlines

The First Section – there are a few items worth mentioning.

• The Conference Board: they measure a LOT of things, and one of them is consumer confidence.

  • You may remember that last week the U. of Michigan survey came out, and it was not pretty, with the lowest measurement in four months.

  • Well, the measurement for the Conference Board was the lowest since 2014.

    • It came in at 81.9, down from 88.6 last month.

  • The Conference Board survey focuses on employment prospects and business conditions, and there are many areas that one can focus on.  However…

  • As it turns out, the measure of confidence is generational, and the groups with the highest levels of confidence are Gen Z and Millennials.  Go figure.  Social media would have you believe that generation thinks the sky is falling.

    • The lowest?  The Silent Generation and the Boomers.

      • We’re a cranky bunch.

    • The Gen Xers are right in the middle, just like the middle child they’ve always been in the workforce.

• Jobs.

  • The ADP report came in at 90,000 jobs added against expectations of 68,000 and up from 38,000 the month before.

  • The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report showed a growth of 29,000 against expectations of 84,000 and 162,000 added the month before.

    • And the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%.  So why is that?

    • The labor force grew by 485,000, and the labor participation rate ticked up to 61.8%, all while Boomers are retiring.  Go figure.

      • More people entered the workforce, and while most got jobs, some did not, hence the increase in the unemployment rate.

  • Oh, and manufacturing added 9,000, and 11,000 were added in construction.

• Consumer Spending

  • Last week I talked about the “experiences” spending trend that I dubbed the YOLO economy – You Only Live Once – that is the lower arm of the K Economy.

  • Well, this week, the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis – BEA for short – revealed that consumer spending rose 0.9% over the previous month.

    • We are still spending even though income rose only 0.2%.

  • Spending on Goods rose $114,000,000,000, led by… drumroll… gas and energy products, followed by motor vehicles and auto parts.

  • Spending on Services rose by $77,000,000,000, led by… restaurants and accommodations.  YOLO! 

The Great White North & Waabi

• Good day, eh.

• So, what’s a Waabi?  Another autonomous trucking company.

  • Except, it’s Canadian, hoser, as Bob and Doug McKenzie would say.

• What makes them different?  They just completed a fully autonomous 300-mile run from Dallas to San Antonio without having practiced it in simulation or inputting any new data.  It just drove using its TomTom.

  • I’m just kidding about the TomTom part.

• Waabi was established in 2021 by a U. of Toronto professor who also just happened to be a former chief scientist for Uber; Her name is Racquel Urtasun.

  • Per Ms. Urtasun:  The truck “was able to drive perfectly, confidently, safely, with no interventions for the entirety, without ever seeing that lane before. With no data, no engineering, no retraining, no nothing, instantaneously.

    • It did have data, i.e., the route.  But the point was, it wasn’t rehearsed nor trained for that specific route.  And it never asked for directions.

    • Regarding “confidently”.  A machine isn’t confident; it just follows directions.  It would have been equally confident going off the side of the road as it would have been staying on the pavement.  But I digress, confidently.

• The name of the operating platform?  Waabi World.  That wouldn’t be a play on Wally World, would it?

  • Take off! 

Speaking of Autonomous

• Caterpillar has had fully autonomous dump trucks – the giant yellow ones with tires 6 feet in diameter – running autonomously on closed-loop courses in mines and quarries for several years.

  • Cat is making the move to landfills, teaming up with WM – Waste Management.

• Those large bulldozers you see in landfills with the huge metal spiked wheels are driven remotely by an operator about a quarter mile away.

  • It’s not autonomous, but the operator isn’t in the middle of a garbage landfill enduring the grind of driving a 125,000 pound piece of yellow metal.

  • The driver is surrounded by monitors and sound.  I’d call it a simulator, but it’s really what’s happening in the landfill down the road, replicated in a room offsite.

• Impressive.  

Headlines

• Florida Railroad Brightline Files for Bankruptcy – Oh, but no worries; it won’t affect the Brightline track from Vegas to Apple Valley, California, nothing to see here.  Move along.

• Starbucks Set to Close About 250 Locations – The CEO is wrapping up his second year with the company and wants to cut $2,000,000,000 by the end of his fourth year.

  • And he’s coming for your favorite non-performing location.

• China’s Geely Unveils Technology That Slashes EV Charging Time -Frequent readers may recall my discussions on China EV manufacturers.  So, what is the time they have it down to?  Five minutes from 10% to 70%.  If you want a full charge, it’s just under 9 minutes.

  • And gas is at $6.42 in L.A.  EVs are looking pretty good right now. 

As AI, robotics, or plain computing gets better, look for dangerous or tedious jobs to be done autonomously or remotely, such as landfill bulldozer drivers or truck drivers, among many, many others.  How will you respond when your competitors cut labor costs and beat you on your proposals?  What part of your business can be automated?  Ask AI. 

Don’t look now, but it’s the 4th Quarter, and unlike football, there is no two-minute warning going off December 1 to remind you that there are only two weeks left to close deals. 

So get crackin’!