• EMPLOYEE RECRUITMENT IS TOUGH ENOUGH, BUT RETENTION IS BECOMING MAYBE EVEN TOUGHER. Execs and supervisors often forfeit opportunities to lessen the risk of workers quitting when they avoid difficult discussions until it’s too late – usually because talking about uncomfortable issues involves vulnerability which can become awkward, disappointing and involve egos. But conflict resolution is a critical factor in effective leadership, and retention likelihood can often be improved by: (1) Dealing with issues promptly and directly; (2) Listening to the employee’s position with empathy; (3) Approaching resolution with compromise that lets an employee feel some level of ‘win’ versus feeling taken advantage of.  DCG provides Management Leadership Coaching; call for courtesy consult.
  • THE ECONOMY MAY BE “ALREADY PAST THE POINT OF NO RETURN… Investors and historians have warned for years that an extended bull market in the U.S. since 2009 would inevitably lead to an economic overcorrection… The long-awaited Moment – when the inevitable check comes due and house of cards finally falls down – may have finally arrived… In notes to clients this week: (1) JP Morgan strategists wrote ‘A soft landing now looks unlikely, with the airplane in a tailspin (lack of market confidence) and engines about to turn off (bank lending)’; (2) Goldman Sachs wrote that ‘the banking crisis could deliver a severe blow to U.S. economic growth’; (3) also, former Treasury Sec’y Larry Summers warned again that the economy could be headed for a Wile E. Coyote moment ‘having already run off a cliff edge but still blissfully unaware of the sudden crash about to happen’.”  [FORTUNE – 3/21/23]
  •  THE LATEST FINAL BUDGET REPORT FROM U.S. TREASURY reveals that, in fiscal year 2022, the federal government collected nearly $5 trillion in revenue, but spent even more, leading to a nearly $1.4 trillion deficit – at least lower than the over $3 trillion deficit recorded in 2020. To make up the difference the government does what everyone who overspends their budget does: borrow – now cumulatively, so far, over $32 trillion of national debt.
  •  “IN TODAYS WOKE AND NAKEDLY POLITICIZED WORLD OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, ANY PRETEXT WILL DO as long as it can be used to harm those who challenge or offend the party in power.” The glaring banner headlines about President Trump’s supposed ‘hush money’ actions many years ago (based on a State Attorney’s counterintuitive and inventive interpretation of law) “marks a turning point on America’s descent into tyranny. For Trump’s real crime was that he challenged and undermined the established political order – against all odds, conducting a hostile takeover of the Republican Party drawing millions of middle & working class voters, regardless of the consequences to political and business interests of the Washington establishment. It is for that the Uniparty — Democrat & Republican alike — has hounded him and sought his destruction… When a prosecutor picks some person whom he/she dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor.” [AMERICAN SPECTATOR – 3/19/23]
  •  THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK: “Freedom of Speech is how we know who the idiots are…”

 Oh finally a government ‘solution’ to spam – if only ‘rules’ were solutions!  The FCC announced last week a Rule to “crack down on scammy robotexts, now requiring mobile phone companies to block texts that are “highly likely to be illegal,” including spoofed or non-working numbers, which spammers frequently rely on for their bulk messages. [LA Times – 3/13/23]

For allergy sufferers, this year without question has so far been the worst season in decades for Los Angeles. But many others have it worse; it turns out that LA ranks 75th on the top 100 largest American city ‘Allergy Capitals,’ based predominantly on air pollen scores. CDC reports some 60 million who sneeze & sniffle thought spring, with “shifting seasonal patterns and weather tied to climate change impacting how many months.” Top ten worst cities are Wichita, Dallas, Scranton, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Sarasota, Cape Coral, Orlando, Des Moines, Virginia Beach.  [CBS NEWS]