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Six months into 2023, a much-predicted recession is yet to arrive – and some experts now suggest the risk may have blown over. "As things cool down with the Fed rate hikes, we're just not likely to tip over into recession," said Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's chief economist. Here's a selection of recent upbeat takes on the economy from prominent market voices. Since the start of 2023, American companies and investors have been bracing for a dreaded economic downturn spawned by the steepest surge in interest rates since the 1980s. But six months later, the most predicted recession in recent memory is yet to materialize – and some experts are now suggesting the risk may have blown over. Encouraging economic data – highlighted by a combination of resilient job-market numbers and cooling inflation – gives some support to that argument too.  On its part, the stock market has defied Wall Street's doom-and-gloom predictions for the economy to notch the best first-half gain since 2019 – thanks in part to an explosion of investor interest in artificial intelligence. Morgan Stanley's chief economist Seth Carpenter and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman are among top voices that remain bullish on the trajectory of the economy. Here's what they had to say:  Seth Carpenter, global chief economist at Morgan Stanley "The labor market is one of the key stories so far this year," the bank's top economist recently told Yahoo Finance. "There has been clear slowing, however, the rate of job gains has been pretty strong and we think that's been contributing to resilience spending."  "That also means as things do cool down with the Fed rate hikes, we're just not likely to tip over into recession," he added. Paul Krugman, Nobel-prize winning economist  "US economic news has been increasingly encouraging: falling inflation, no sign of a recession," the economics professor at the City University of New York tweeted in late June.  More recently, he wrote in a New York Times op-ed this week: "The plunge in the misery index reflects both what didn't happen and what did. What didn't happen, despite a drumbeat of dire warnings in the news media, was a recession. The U.S. economy added four million jobs over the past year, and the unemployment rate has remained near a 50-year low." READ MORE BELOW

You can gain a lot of knowledge from Courses. Coursera, HubSpot course, Google Digital Marketing. Social media content on sales, and marketing, Free classes online in sales, and marketing from reputable companies. Researching from forums, networking. When it comes to the finance industry, targeting, branding, persistence, and adapting to changes will make you successful. You can generate leads for free from most sources, but the problem is the contact information, the time, and the effort you have to research to find the contact information. You will have to go to the DNC List, State DNC List, and Litigation Scrubbing. If you do not have the money to scrub, You will have to email while being compliant with the CAN-Spam Act. Please, do not cold call without scrubbing your data, legal action will happen and it will hurt your reputation. You can do business-to-business, social media marketing, and engage in forums. You can work with brokers, and referrals, and even hold events to get your clientele. Specialize in certain industries you are targeting, and see where the business owners meet together forums, and events. Learn the industry, and see the pain and woes of the businesses. Build a relationship with the business owners even if they're not your client. You can gain referrals and start building your reputation through genuine, honest business relationships.

Bank of America has been ordered to pay $250 million in fines and customer compensation for deceptive practices that harmed "hundreds of thousands of consumers," according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The federal regulator on Tuesday said the bank withheld credit card rewards, illegally double-dipped on fees and opened accounts without consent. It’s one of the highest financial penalties in years against the country’s second-largest bank, which was also ordered to pay a $10 million civil penalty over unlawful garnishments and $225 million in fines for "botched" state unemployment benefit disbursements in 2022.  The latest penalty includes $90 million to the CFPB and $60 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The bank must also pay $80.4 million in consumer redress on top of the $23 million it had already paid to customers denied rewards bonuses. 'Double-dipping' to harvest junk fees Part of the penalties stem from a now-defunct Bank of America policy that charged customers $35 when the bank declined a transaction because a customer did not have enough funds in their account, also called a non-sufficient funds fee. The CFPB found the bank allowed fees to be repeatedly charged for the same transaction, allowing the bank to generate “substantial additional revenue.” Bank of America eliminated all non-sufficient fund fees and reduced overdraft fees from $35 to $10 in the first half of 2022. As a result, "revenue from these fees has dropped more than 90 percent,” the bank said in a statement to USA TODAY.    Fake accounts CFPB said Bank of America withheld credit card rewards to tens of thousands of consumers who submitted applications in person or over the phone instead of online. The regulator said the bank also had employees that, since at least 2012, illegally applied for and enrolled consumers in credit card accounts without their knowledge to reach now disbanded sales-based incentive goals. This resulted in unjustified fees and harms to consumers’ credit profiles, CFPB found. The order comes less than a year after the CFPB's largest fine against any bank to date in late 2022, when the agency ordered Wells Fargo to pay $2 billion to customers and a $1.7 billion penalty to settle charges after a series of scandals tied to its sales practices. Read More:

Your paycheck could clear faster now that the FedNow instant payment service for banks has launched. Here is information from the Federal Reserve website about the launch and the participants so far: "The Federal Reserve’s FedNow Service is an instant payments infrastructure that allows participating banks and credit unions to send and receive transactions within seconds on behalf of their customers — 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This page lists participating financial institutions that are currently live on the service, as well as financial institutions serving as settlement and liquidity providers. Financial institutions that have completed testing and certification will be added to the list once they are live on the service. Also listed are certified service providers that have completed testing certification to support payment processing for participants. More information about the offerings of these organizations — and those of other vendors that support instant payment services such as bill pay, payroll processing, digital wallet and API development — may be found at the FedNow Service Provider Showcase (Off-site)." Read More below To learn more about the Fednow instant payment system, they have set up an Instant Payments University.

This change will certainly affect the way businesses advertise and generate leads. For the marketing experts, what are your opinions, and what will you do to prepare and change to the new API format?? Here's the article from The Verge:

The first Generative AI for a CRM! Salesforce is changing the way teams do business. Watch the presentation from SF by clicking the twitter link below. https://twitter.com/i/events/1625206339235418127?s=20

We are now over 1200 members and growing. We don't accept everyone and turn away those who don't reveal their real name or the company they work for so we have had well over that total sign-up over time. Glad to welcome these recent members: @Boris Safaniev @Joshua Hamrell @Kody Chang @Zain Muzammal @Silvana Fischer @Jimmy Harari @Mark Jaffe @carl bach @Stefanie Zappala @Manpreet Dhot @Francisco Piera @Paul Boxer @Bill Miner @Ayesha Contractor @Will Hurst @Christopher Piessens @Carlos Tse @elliot firestone @john cutignola @Jonathan Clark @Nick Dawson @DAVID NAM @Alexander Brenlla @Ryan Willey Tell us something about you or your business.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday decided against what would have been an 11th consecutive interest rate increase as it measures what the impacts have been from the previous 10. But the decision by the Federal Open Market Committee to hold off on a hike at this meeting came with a projection that another two quarter percentage point moves are on the way before the end of the year. Investors will be looking for further details from Fed Chair Jerome Powell at his 2:30 p.m. press conference. However, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 300 points in the wake of the decision. Central bankers following a two-day meeting said they will take another six weeks to see the impacts of policy moves as the Fed fights an inflation battle that lately has shown some promising if uneven signs. The decision left the Fed’s key borrowing rate in a target range of 5%-5.25%.“Holding the target range steady at this meeting allows the Committee to assess additional information and its implications for monetary policy,” the post-meeting statement said. The Fed next meets July 25-26. CONTINUE READING BELOW

This has been brewing for a long time as people or companies have been creating fake reviews since the beginning. Lets see what comes out of this, but what would you recommend being done about it? What are your funniest examples of fake reviews youve seen?? Heres the article: "Businesses could soon be fined a hefty sum for hosting or promoting fake product reviews online if the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has its way. Faux five-star and rave reviews of less-than-stellar consumer goods can boost businesses' profits while deceiving consumers, according to the FTC, which has proposed a rule to crack down on businesses that buy, sell or promote phony user ratings of their products.  Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, which can write human-sounding but bogus product reviews, threaten to compound the problem, according to the FTC. The new technology could enable bad actors to generate significantly higher volumes of fake reviews in order to generate unearned interest in their products. Deceptive reviews hurt consumers by making it hard to obtain genuine, factual information about products they're considering buying. "

While Pricing and Cash Flow Forecasting Remain Top Concerns, New American Express Report Finds 95% of Small Business Owners Surveyed are Happy they Started their Company American Express issued its third Amex Trendex: Small Business Edition, which found that even as small business owners surveyed face continued economic uncertainty, their personal drive and long-term aspirations are buoying their optimism.  "Small business owners are concerned about issues like pricing and cash flow forecasting, but they are overwhelmingly happy that they chose their career path as an entrepreneur, and most intend to be small business owners for the long run,” said Gina Taylor Cotter, EVP & GM, Small Business Products & Business Blueprint at American Express. “We also found that growing up with technology and social media has influenced how Millennials and Gen-Zers operate as small business owners: they are more likely to start a company right out of school and rely on technology to run their business." Amidst pricing and cash flow forecasting concerns, small business owners’ drive and long-term aspirations keep them motivated  Pricing/price hikes (44%) and cash flow forecasting (35%) are small business owner respondents’ top concerns, which is consistent with Amex Trendex findings over the past year. Nearly 7-in-10 (68%) wish that they had more time to focus on their product/service vs. managing their businesses’ finances. But small business owners have a positive mindset despite these challenges: 95% of those surveyed are happy with their decision to start their company.  The Amex Trendex report found that small business owners are motivated by their long-term ambitions. Six-in-ten respondents (60%) expect their business to be a long-term venture and run for more than five years. When asked about their long-term business goals, longevity rose to the top (49%), followed by becoming an established leader in their industry (32%) and growing their employee base (24%). As for why owners chose to start their small businesses: more than eight-in-ten respondents (84%) were inspired by a personal passion; nearly two-thirds (65%) saw a need in their community; about six-in-ten (59%) want to support their family and future generations; and over four-in-ten (44%) needed more flexible work. Survey suggests that growing up with technology and social media influences how Millennials and Gen-Zers take to small business ownership Millennial and Gen-Z small business owners surveyed are most likely to have learned about entrepreneurism online or on social media (56%), compared to Gen-X and Boomers who knew an entrepreneur personally (47%).  And, while three-quarters (74%) of Gen-X and Boomer small business owners surveyed had a traditional job (private sector, government, or another role in their current business) before starting their company, Millennials and Gen-Zers are more split and likelier to have started their business right out of school. About six-in-ten (59%) of Millennials and Gen-Zers surveyed had a traditional job before starting their business but one-in-five (20%) Millennial and Gen-Z small business owners indicated they were students or unemployed before starting their business (vs. 3% of Gen-Xers and Boomers).  The survey also found that Millennial and Gen-Z small business owners, who grew up with technology, rely on it to run their business. When asked about the top contributing factors that helped them navigate the past few years, one-third (33%) of Millennials and Gen-Zers cited technology solutions vs. 18% of Gen-Xers and Boomers. Millennial and Gen-Z small business owners surveyed are also more skeptical about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur than older generations. They are about twice as likely to think that “you have to be wealthy to start a business” (21% vs. 9%), that “true entrepreneurs do it alone” (29% vs. 15%), and one-third (33%) think that “entrepreneurs are born and not made” compared to 22% of Gen-Xers and Boomers. https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/newsroom/articles/amex-for-business/small-business-trendex-may-2024.html

"The latest on a government shutdown: Today(Sept 30) was the last day for Congress to fund the government. A shutdown was set begin at 12:01 a.m. if Congress did not finish its work in time. A last-minute agreement passed the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan majorities, sending a bill to keep government funded through Nov. 17 to the president's desk. The bill, pushed by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., includes disaster relief funds but does not include new aid for Ukraine. McCarthy brought up the new bill after House Republicans failed to pass their short-term spending bill Thursday in an embarrassing defeat. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law late Saturday night." https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/live-blog/live-updates-government-shutdown-set-begin-midnight-rcna118172

Watch this video! Take the time, and watch it in sections if need be, but it's worth it if you are trying to improve your marketing and understand the intricate details of current strategies in digital marketing.