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Is This the Beginning of the End for Wayfair?

It’s been a big week for retail…

Wayfair, the online home goods retailer, announced today it was laying off close to 900 employees. This comes after the company announced a hiring freeze back in May.

The layoffs represent about 5% of the company’s global workforce and 10% of its corporate team. 400 jobs are being cut in Boston alone at the company’s HQ).

This announcement came as an alarm to investors, causing the stock to plummet…

Wayfair’s Stock is Crashing…

For the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company was profitable. According to The Wall Street Journal, Wayfair’s stock fell by over 17% Friday morning.

Wayfair has been struggling to keep customers after a spike at the start of the pandemic. Earlier in August, Wayfair said it lost 24% of active customers since last summer.

Recent regulatory filings revealed that the job cuts will help Wayfair “manage operating expenses and realign investment priorities.”

CEO Niraj Shah wrote in an letter to employees that the layoffs were a “difficult decision” resulting from Covid-19.

“We were seeing the tailwinds of the pandemic accelerate the adoption of e-commerce shopping, and I personally pushed hard to hire a strong team to support that growth,” Shah wrote. “This year, that growth has not materialized as we had anticipated. Our team is too large for the environment we are now in, and unfortunately we need to adjust.”

 

Is This the Beginning of the End for Wayfair?

Wayfair had flourished at the beginning of the pandemic, when demand for inexpensive furniture and other home decor upgrades that it broke global supply chains and caused lengthy shipment delays.

But fast forward to the present economy, inflation has killed discretionary spending for  middle-income shoppers, who have pulled back their purchases to focus on paying for necessities like groceries, gas and rent. Wealthier customers have shifted their spending from furniture and other goods to travel and services. Mortgage rates have climbed significantly, cutting into demand for new homes as well (a key demographic for the company).

Overall, Wayfair posted a net loss of $378 million during the quarter. Wayfair’s shares have lost about 70% of their value since the start of the year. The layoffs will cost Wayfair between $30 million to $40 million for employee severance and benefits.

 

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Recent Video Explains Why Sri Lanka Just Declared Bankruptcy…

Sri Lanka Just Announced They Are Bankrupt. And Out of Fuel…

A country thriving and wealthy in 2012 just announced they are bankrupt in 2022.

Before it’s recent bankruptcy Sri Lanka  had a thriving economy. In fact its economy grew at an accelerated rate, ranked above Singapore, Ireland, and South Korea.

Located in the center of the world’s most important shipping location, the country was set up to be a world economic import superpower. But a crisis hit…

On Tuesday, the country’s president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, told the Sri Lankan parliament that the country is not only bankrupt and that it also has no fuel left. Government employees have been told to stay home due to fuel unavailability.

Inflation spiked 54.6% in a year and is expected to hit 60% soon, and transportation costs have gone up 128% in only one month, according to Bloomberg.

At the G7 Summit last month, the US pledged $20 million to assist Sri Lankans in the fight for food security. This came in addition to a previously donated amount of $12 million.

But despite global assistance, the nightmare is far from over for Sri Lanka. Premier Wickremesinghe said that the country was participating in negotiations as a bankrupt state, and the worse is yet to come…

“Due to the state of bankruptcy our country is in, we have to submit a plan on our debt sustainability to (the IMF) separately. Only when they are satisfied with that plan can we reach an agreement at the staff level. This is not a straightforward process,” he said, and CNN reported.

A recent video explains the full story.

 

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Is This the End of Shopify? Shopify Lays Off 10% of Employees

Shopify Inc. SHOP 1.90%▲ is cutting roughly 1,000 workers, or 10% of its global workforce, rolling back a bet on e-commerce growth the technology company made during the pandemic, according to recently shared internal memo.

Leaving many people wondering why?

According to the Wallstreeet Journal reported today, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke says company made wrong bet on pandemic-fueled boom in e-commerce growth.

The main reason for the layoffs was rapid hiring to accommodate increased ecommerce shopping trends.

Basically, Shopify was betting on that the rapid Covid-era lock downs would increase in ecommerce shopping would continue as a trend, hastening a greater adoption of online shopping.

That didn’t happen…At least not for Shopify.

 

What is Shopify?

Based in Ottawa, Canada, Shopify is an e-commerce service that allows merchants to quickly build and customize websites for selling products online. In addition to plan fees, Shopify makes its money in part by taking a percentage of customer transactions. In short, they are a platform that enables users to create drop shipping sites.

 

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WATCH: Olive Oil and Tomatoes Will Cost More Now. Here’s Why…

Northern Italy’s worst drought in 70 years is about to take a big hit on olive oil and tomato prices.

Farmers say the drought could dramatically impact crops on olive oil, tomatoes, and rice resulting in yet another increase in prices for these products.

The Italian government declared a state of emergency in northern regions of Italy as the weather dried out entire stretches of the Po River, the countries longest river and major source of water irrigation for the north of Italy.

The drought has already cost billions of dollars in damage to Italian crops resulting in higher prices around the world…

 

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Italy embraces as their severe drought dries up it’s longest river (the Po River). The Po River irrigates one of the biggest bread baskets in Europe. And it’s all dried up.

Farmers are extremely exhausted, and the situation is only getting worse. Here is a video of how the river depletion is causing havoc on the region…

 

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China’s Banks are Failing, Protests Everywhere. China Prepares for Complete Financial Catastrophe.

$6 billion of savings deposits just disappeared, leaving more than 400,000 depositors of six rural banks in central China’s Henan province devastated.

The journey to get to the bottom of how such a large sum of money disappeared started to unravel a series of systemic financial corruption.

Allegations of crime and corruption are spreading through China’s small banks as more depositors are being locked out from their life savings. And it appears the CCP is making the situation worse.

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Zhengzhou to protest their inability to withdraw money from four local banks since April! Similarly, citizens are accusing their local officials of widespread corruption and mismanagement. It’s getting ugly…

The demonstrations turned violent when a group of unidentified men in white shirts attacked the peaceful demonstrators.

Chinese authorities appear to be pinning blame for the banking issues on a group of “criminals” in charge of the local banks. But the issue runs much, much deeper. Watch the video for the full story. This is far from over…

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Experts are likening the situation to be worse than the US 2008 financial crash and warn of it’s global impact.

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WATCH: Will Electric Cars Save the Planet? Or Just Propaganda?

In a recent episode Valutainment’s Patrick Bet-David breaks down the myths surrounding the electric vehicle debate.

Which is timely considering Biden just announced that by 2030 50% of American cars need to be electric or EV’s.

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But it’s obviously a  little bit more complicated than that.

Here’s why…

Patrick Bet David Breaks Down the Argument For & Against Having EV’s:

In a recent post the Valutainment team investigates and breaks down the argument for and against the environmental impact of the electric vehicle industry. Patrick breaks down;

  • Which industry will benefit the most from EVPS?
  • Who is hurt by EVs?
  • Are EV’s the new Diesel Scandal?

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What is Valuetainment?

Valutainment is an entrepreneur channel created by Serial Entrepreneur, Patrick Bet-David. Valuetainment is referred to as the best channel for entrepreneurs with weekly How To’s, Motivation and interviews with unique individuals. About PBD: During the Iranian Revolution of 1978, Patrick’s family had to escape to survive and ended up living at a refugee camp in Erlangen, Germany. At 12 years old Patrick found himself collecting cans & beer bottles to raise money that could help his family and get him a Nintendo.
Thinking of buying an electric vehicle? Read this first…
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WATCH: Why the Wall Street Journal Says, “a 2022 Recession Would be Unlike Any Other”

Are we in a recession yet?

Many economists think that’s a possibility and by some measurements, we might already be in one.

But then why aren’t people losing their jobs?

Here’s why Wall Street Journal’s Jon Hilsenrath is calling the current economy as a “jobful downturn.”

 

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Video Exposes the Most Powerful Company You’ve Never Heard of. The Blackrock Story

Blackrock is a company that virtually no one had heard of until recently. They have become one of the largest organizations on the planet with $9 trillion in assets under management.

That’s larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of every single country around the globe, with the exception of China and the United States.

 

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For perspective, the grand total of wealth funds managed by over 91 funds across the world is projected to be worth approximately 8.2 Trillion US Dollars. A single investment management firm based out of New York manages more funds than all the sovereign wealth funds in the world.

Crazy right? In fact…

If you were to make $1 every second, you’d be worth as much as BlackRock in about 240,000 years.

What’s more, if you research every major publicly traded company in the world and you’ll find that BlackRock is its first, second or third-largest shareholder. They also apparently own part of CNN and FOX.

How Much of the Media Does BlackRock and Vanguard Own?

  • 18% of Fox
  • 16% of CBS (and therefore also ofSixty Minutes)
  • 13% of Comcast (which owns NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and the Sky media group)
  • 12% of CNN
  • 12% of Disney (which owns ABC andFiveThirtyEight)
  • Between 10-14% of Gannett (which owns more than 250 Gannett daily newspapers plusUSA Today)
  • 10% of the Sinclair local television news (which controls 72% of U.S. households’ local TV)

So yeah they own a  pretty influential piece of the news.

Where Did Blackrock Come From Anyway?

The Company was co-founded in 1988 by a very well-connected billionaire by the name of Larry Fink, who has been described as “a defacto middleman and lynchpin between Washington, DC, and Wall Street.” The firm operates globally with 70 offices in 30 countries and clients in 100 countries.

BlackRock started making headlines during the 2008 financial meltdown.

When the financial crisis of 2007-2008 hit, the US government hired BlackRock to clean up the mess from the crisis by managing the toxic assets that were owned by firms like the Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac. In fact, even amidst the current financial crisis caused due to the Coronavirus outbreak starting in 2020, the Trump administration turned to Blackrock to bail out companies overleveraged in debt. the government is once again looking for BlackRock’s expertise.

Today, at least three of BlackRock’s leaders now hold prominent roles in President Joe Biden’s cabinet.

Given the company’s habit of forming shadow cabinets ahead of presidential transitions and its involvement in the new Federal reserve programs, Bloomberg even went as far as calling BlackRock our “fourth branch of government.”

Pretty impressive positioning for a company that’s only 34 years old.

WATCH: BlackRock’s Investment Strategy:

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40% of All the Money Ever Printed in the US, Was Printed in the Last 12 Months?

The Federal Reserve has been printing money like it’s going out of style in an attempt pay for about $29 trillion in U.S. debt. While it’s nothing new for a government to print money to cover some debt, what is new however, is that the 40% of US dollars in existence were printed in the last 12 months alone.

Which doesn’t seem like it will end well…

 

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Why is the US Printing So Much Money?

As part of its effort to stimulate the economy, the U.S. government issued stimulus checks to millions of employed Americans. With money they didn’t have…

The government had to borrow by selling its debt in the form of U.S. Treasury bonds and other types of securities.

On a similar but not altogether different note, here’s Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet explaining how, if the government prints too much money, it ends up like Venezuela.

 

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How Much Money Will the U.S. Print This Year?

For the 2022 fiscal year, a range of 6,876,800,000 to 9,654,400,000 pieces of money will be printed, totaling from $310,572,800,000 to $356,179,200,000.

 

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Amazon Prepares to Launch Delivery Drones. Again…

13 years after Jeff Bezos promised the world drone delivery, it appears they might be making good on that promise soon. The company is planning to roll out its first city this year.

Which feels like something out of a sci fi movie. While it still seems logistically impossible for drones delivery to actually work, I wouldn’t bet against Bezos’ ability to pull it off…

If you haven’t heard of their drone delivery network yet, it’s called Prime Air.

So what the hell is Prime Air exactly?

 

What is Prime Air Anyway?

Prime Air, is a drone delivery service currently in development by Amazon that will deploy delivery drones to autonomously fly individual packages to customers within 30 minutes of ordering.

In order to qualify for 30-minute delivery, your order must be less than 5 lbs. The products also have to be small enough to fit in the cargo box that the aircraft will carry… and have an Amazon delivery location within a 10-mile radius of a participating Amazon fulfillment center.

 

Is This Actually Happening?

In late 2020 Amazon, along with Zipline, Wingcopter and 7 others were selected by FAA to participate in a type certification program for delivery drones. Operations are expected to begin in the town of Lockeford, California later in 2022.

After years of testing and delays, the company is finally set to launch. At least for products 5 pounds or less…

Watch this video to learn more.

 

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How will Prime Air Actually Work Though?

When a customer places an order eligible for Prime Air, they’ll receive an estimated arrival time and status tracker for their package.

The drone uses a sense-and-avoid system to safely fly packages while also dodging obstacles such as other objects and aircraft.

“As our drone descends to deliver the package into a customer’s backyard, the drone ensures that there’s a small area around the delivery location that’s clear of any people, animals, or other obstacles,” said an Amazon representative.

Once it gets low enough, the drone will release the package and just fly off.

Is Anyone Else Doing Drone Delivery?

Walmart said their drone network could reach up to 4 million households in six states: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Items including Tylenol, diapers and hot dog buns could be delivered in as little as 30 minutes…

Similarly, drone company Wing, owned by Google parent company Alphabet, announced in April plans to launch a commercial drone delivery service in Dallas. Walgreens is among the retailers partnering with Wing to offer items delivered by drone.