Month: June 2026

In 2004, sending a text cost $0.10, but by 2010 unlimited texting was included in many plans. Now it’s AI’s turn. Google just reduced its entry-level consumer AI Plus plan from $7.99/month to $4.99/month. OpenAI is looking to drop its…

Not only is Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, but his net worth exceeds that of the next four richest people (Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, and Larry Ellison). Moreover, his net worth of $1.1 trillion exceeds the GDP…

The Friday File: With the 2026 World Cup already underway, Spain is favored. They’re defending European champs and BetMGM has them at +450, meaning a $100 bet will get you $450 profit plus the initial $100 (17.5% chance of winning…

When Amazon went public in 1997 as a loss-making online bookseller, it issued shares at 2.9 times revenue. In 2004, Google’s shares debuted with an established and profitable advertising model backing its search engine and went public at 8.5 times…

Markets are now virtually certain the Fed will hike rates by year-end but doing so when inflation isn’t being transmitted into wages makes no sense. Average hourly earnings rose by +3.4% Y-o-Y in May, but inflation as measured by the…

From 24Q4 through 25Q4, the value of household equity portfolios rose $10.31 trillion, or 18% to $67.77 trillion. By contrast, house prices have increased little. Thus, a record 33% of household net wealth is now held in equities, well above…

May net job growth surged 172,000, March/April were revised up 93,000, and the broadest measure of unemployment declined from 8.2% to 8.1%, terrific. However, wage growth declined from 3.6% to 3.4% Y-o-Y, and almost all growth was regrettably in the…

The Friday File: Using Walmart grocery prices as a benchmark, the most expensive grocery store is Whole Foods, it’s 39.4% more expensive. Vons is 26.6% more costly, Albertson’s is 24.8% higher, Publix 20.3%, Kroger 14.8%, Meijer 9.9%, Safeway 8.8%, and…

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes, one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, speculated that by 2030 technological progress would be so profound that a 15-hour workweek would be sufficient to satisfy our needs. While productivity skyrocketed and incomes…

While not data points, newspaper headlines like “Real Estate Agents Quit as Housing Market Slouches,” “Retailers Cut Prices to Lure Struggling Shoppers,” and “Gap in Profits, Worker Pay Widens” suggest consumers are hurting. Here’s the supporting data. Adjusted for inflation…