San Francisco proclaims the image of being the smartest people in the room.  Must be with human waste and used needles covering the streets. They live up to the image of being enlightened.  To add insult to injury, the report from NBC Bay Area that 400 restaurants closed last year (2019). Many famous spots are now gone after decades in business.  The reasons provided covered, increase in food cost, rent, the "High Cost" of San Francisco.  

Fun to watch reality go out the door.  Looking at the Venture Capital funding world, our friends at WeWorked really screwed it up for everyone in the business.  The ramp up to Bubble 2.0 is longer and bigger than what happened leading up to 2000.  

In the movie the Big Short, the renegade traders did one thing no one else did, look.  While the hype of the market reaching record levels, things can't be better for the economy, record low unemployment, etc we live in an age where the information is readily accessible to everyone, yet are people really looking?

The recent employment numbers announced @ 145,000 new jobs. Remember par is 150,000 new jobs per month.  Class 8 truck orders collapsed, train freight collapsed etc etc.  But no one wants to hear bad news only good.

Thank you for sharing your talent over the years.  Keep on rocking with your family on the other side.

Zume Pizza the robot produced pizza that would revolutionize the pizza world by eliminating the store and have a production facility using a hybrid robot and human production line with trucks that will finish the cooking process while being delivered. 

Just over 4 weeks ago reported about Deans Dairy BK. Well add Borden to the list. They just BK'd today.  Looks like they are following in the footsteps of Deans with DIP financing.  What is the reason for the BK filing?  According to CNN: 

.....it cannot afford its debt load and its pension obligations.

Stopped by a Fry's Electronic store. Shelves, walls, departments were empty of people and productions.  San Francisco Chronicle has a story.  The company is denying any problems. The shelves on the other hand looks like a store in Venezuela or old Soviet Union.

Last month mentioned Cass's perspective of the economy based on goods moving or more important the lack of goods moving.  Now a report from from the Association of American Railroads (AAR) further reinforces what Cass showed.

There are 13 types of freight tracked. Only 1 showed and increase (Petroleum). Everything else is down year over year.

The markets are great, right?  Everyone is making money, right?  Here is what is strange "smart" people with "smart" money, like hedge funds and pension funds are loosing their asses. Why?  If everything is great, why are the all loosing money?

Funds are liquidating because they can't cut it.  

Many pensions loosing money as well ($1.28T gap).  

Simply brilliant. Carlos Ghosn springs out of house arrest and ends up in Lebanon before Japanese authorities knew he was gone.  Just for reference, it is normally a 16 hour flight from Tokyo to Beirut.  This is not the first time Japan's legal system is used to to eliminate a business problem. It was done to Livedoor's Takefumi Horie to get him out of the way.  Ghosn's efforts to finalize the merger between Renault and Nissan rubbed legacy Nissan the wrong way.  The solution, do a Horie.  But if Ghosn has pulled off the escape, way to go!