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Inflation Is Falling… If You Don’t Eat, Drive, or Live Indoors

Every week the headlines tell us some version of “everything is stabilizing.”
Every week the data quietly whispers, “yeah… about that.”

This week’s numbers are a perfect example of why you can’t just read the top-line headline and move on with your life. Jobs were added, inflation “cooled,” and affordability is apparently improving — if you don’t look too closely at hours worked, part-time employment, revisions, or what people are actually spending money on.

So let’s do what we always do:
Peel back the surface, call bullshit where appropriate, and then pivot to where the money actually is.

Contents show

Economic News

1️⃣ November Jobs Report: Looks Okay From 30,000 Feet. Falls Apart on Landing.

The Bureau of Labor dropped the November jobs report, and at first glance it looks… fine-ish.

Jobs increased by 64,000, which on paper isn’t terrible. Now let’s open the hood.

  • Warehouse, transportation, couriers, and messengers lost ~20,000 jobs
    (Translation: automation and AI are replacing humans.)
  • Health care and construction added jobs
    (Aging population + infrastructure = predictable.)
  • Average workweek: 34 hours
    That’s not “strong labor market” energy.
  • Part-time employment jumped by 909,000
    These are people who want full-time work and can’t get it.
  • Newly unemployed (under 5 weeks) increased by 316,000 to 2.5 million
  • Revisions (always fun):
    • August revised down 22,000 → actually lost 26,000 jobs
    • September revised down 11,000 → 108,000 added

All of this lands us at an unemployment rate of 4.6%, the highest since September 2021.

But the worst line in the entire report?

👉 October — which mysteriously wasn’t reported — shows 105,000 job losses across sectors.

If you break unemployment down by age:

  • Every age group except 20–24 and 55+ saw higher unemployment than September.

So yes — the labor market is weak, and it’s getting weaker.

We’ve been calling this for months. Now the media is finally starting to catch up.

And those manufacturing jobs we were promised from tariffs? Still missing. 

The only sector consistently growing is health care… because people are aging, not because the economy is thriving.

2️⃣ November CPI: Prices Are “Down” (If You Ignore Reality)

The November CPI report dropped this morning and — shocker — the numbers look better.

According to the “data”:

  • Prices fell 0.3% from September to November
  • YoY inflation now sits at 2.7%, down from 3%
  • Core CPI (excluding food & energy) fell from 2.9% to 2.6%

Sounds great… until you look at what actually went up. 

Prices increased for:

  • Shelter
  • Energy
  • Food
  • Household furnishings
  • Communication
  • Personal care

Prices decreased for:

  • Lodging away from home
  • Recreation
  • Apparel

So let me make sure I understand this:

➡️ Everything people need costs more.
➡️ Everything people aren’t buying costs less.

➡️ And somehow that equals “inflation cooling.”

I may be a simpleton, but that math is not mathing.

Add in the timing — this report drops right after a prime-time affordability speech — and yeah… I’m not buying this report. At all.

Top 10 IINvestments Going Ex-Dividend Next Week

There’s a lot going on here, and it’s actually a sneaky-good list if you know what to look for.

Important notes first:

  • MAIN goes ex-dividend on 01/08
    • Regular dividend: $0.26
    • This $0.30 payout is an extra/special dividend

We also have a heavy dose of CEFs this week:

  • WIW – Treasury / inflation play
  • FSCO – Bond fund
  • TYG – Energy fund
  • SCD – Large cap equity fund
  • EMD – Emerging markets

Now for the standouts.

Dividend growth winners:

  • MO – 8% dividend growth (5-year)
  • MAIN – 10% dividend growth (5-year)
  • POR – 5% dividend growth (5-year)

And yes — all three are somewhat undervalued:

  • MO ~9%
  • MAIN ~2%
  • POR ~3%

Cha. Ching.

We currently hold MO & LTC, and have previously held WIW, MAIN, GAIN, EMD, and SCD.

They’re all solid, but MO, POR, and MAIN are the clear winners this week.

Portfolio Updates

1️⃣ AMZY Is Officially All Profit 🎉

We sold $600 of AMZY to fully recoup our initial investment.
What’s left?

👉 47 shares that are 100% profit.

Because we only have a few weeks before using cash for travel expenses, we’ve temporarily switched CONY, NVDY, and AMZY from cash to DRIP.

Why?

  • All profit
  • Short-term compounding
  • Zero capital risk

2️⃣ AMZY → LFGY Swap = Income Upgrade

With the $600 from AMZY, we bought LFGY on the cheap.

Let’s talk numbers:

  • AMZY: ~$0.50 per share/month × 46 shares ≈ $23/month
  • LFGY: ~$2.20 per share/month × 21 shares ≈ $46/month

That’s a 100% income increase.

No magic. Just math.

3️⃣ Retirement Portfolio Update

This week’s retirement cash was deployed into LTC.

Slow, boring, reliable. Exactly what that portfolio is supposed to be.

P.S.

We finally got the $150,000 in equity from selling the condo. If you didn’t see our live stream yesterday where we deployed the majority into our main assets, you can rewatch here. 

If you want to join today’s live stream where we invest an additional $30,000 into high-yield ETFs for cashflow, hop onto our YouTube channel at noon EST. 

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