HMM: The “No Hire, No Fire” Economy.

Job seekers are discouraged by a plague of ghost job listings intended to provide the illusion of growth, with no intention of anyone ever being hired.

Inflation is low, yet consumer confidence is at the lowest level in more than a decade. Stocks are booming, yet no one seems to be hiring. (This seems to be my personal experience as well.) Trump and congressional Republicans have managed to lower taxes, yet the “animal spirits” of the American economy do not seem like they’re been unleashed.

Is AI eliminating jobs? Maybe, especially in the service sector (those AI agents everyone hates have probably replaced some humans on support lines). But tech has been a job growth driver for much of this century, and an AI infrastructure build-out seems to be sucking up all available venture capital (and then some) with very little to show for it in the way of actual profits thus far.

It’s a weird time, to be sure — but at least we have “no fire” to go along with the “no fire,” and perhaps more importantly, wages are up.