Archive for November 2023

In 2019, UPS delivered 4.7 billion domestic packages, FedEx delivered 3 billion, and Amazon 1.9 billion. Last year, UPS distributed 5.3 billion, Amazon 5.2 billion and FedEx 3.3 billion. With UPS and FedEx volumes expected to be flat in 2023 as they focus on higher margin volume, and Amazon growing, 2023 will see Amazon snatch…

In 10/23, net job growth was relatively weak at 150,000. Moreover, most of the gains were in just three sectors, healthcare (58,000), government (51,000), and leisure & hospitality (19,000). While job growth will likely slow in the latter two categories, healthcare employment remains very strong. Since 1/22, healthcare employment has risen 6.8% and continues to…

In 2022, philanthropic giving totaled $499.3 billion. Individuals gave $319 billion, foundations $105 billion, bequests $46 billion, and corporations $29 billion. Contributions declined 3.4% from 2021 and 10.5% after inflation, the biggest decline since the Great Recession. Charitable giving meaningfully jumped in 2020 and peaked in 2021 at $516.9 billion inflation adjusted. After peaking in…

With FTX exposed as fraudulent, and Binance as a money laundering operation, large, monopolistic, hugely profitable crypto exchanges must become legitimate actors. Binance’s settlement with the U.S. Treasury requiring it to create true anti-money laundering systems, and in the process, become the eyes and ears of the U.S. Treasury is the first. Heavy government crypto…

This Thanksgiving, 46 million turkeys (half of all turkeys sold) costing $1.3 billion will be consumed, and 88% of Americans will partake in a turkey dinner. While the average price of a 16 pound bird rose 1.3% compared to last Thanksgiving, well below the current inflation rate of 3.2%, over the past decade turkey inflation…

Walmart, the biggest retailer in the U.S., has 1.5 million U.S. employees, enough to make it the 41st largest state. In FYE 1/23, Walmart had sales revenue of $606 billion, which would (pardon the apples to oranges comparison) make it the world’s 24th largest economy. Between 2/1/23 and 10/31/23, it enjoyed $474 billion in sales,…

The U.S. economy is becoming increasingly recession resistant. State, local, and federal government spending as a percentage of GDP has risen from 29% in 1962 to 35% today. Similarly, healthcare spending has risen from 5.2% of GDP in 1962 to 18.3% in 2021. Collectively they have risen from 34.2% of GDP to 53.3% and most…

The Friday File: Prior to Taylor Swift/The Eras Tour, the top grossing concert film of all time was Justin Bieber: Never Say Never with $73 million in 2011, followed by Michael Jackson’s This Is It which grossed $72.1 million in 2009. After four weeks in theaters, the first two of which it was the highest…

In the 1998 Microsoft antitrust case, Microsoft forced PC makers not to install competitive internet browsers if they wanted Windows desktop software to crush competition. In Google’s current antitrust case, we now know that Google paid Apple/Samsung/Motorola/AT&T/T-Mobile/Mozilla and many others $26.3 billion in 2021 to make Google’s search engine the default. This pay-to-tap approach is…

CPI rose 3.2% Y-o-Y in October, down from 3.7% in August and September, and barely above the 3.1% June low, its lowest level since 3/21. CPI peaked at 9% Y-o-Y in 6/22. More importantly, core CPI rose 4% Y-o-Y, its lowest level since 8/21 and is down from a 9/21 peak of 6.6%. October was…