The Friday File: On 09/08/22, Queen Elizabeth II died at 96. On the throne for 70 years, she was the longest reigning British monarch, surpassing the 63 years set by her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria. Her son, now King Charles III,…
With European energy prices stratospheric, the pressure on governments to intervene is profound. However, all solutions aren’t equal. Capping prices is the worst solution; it encourages consumption by making energy artificially cheap. A subsidy on the amount of energy consumed…
The number of passengers going through a TSA checkpoint on 8/28/22 was 2,311,805 compared to 1,887,845 on 8/28/19, the first time 2019 totals were bested post-pandemic. To prove it wasn’t a fluke, over the 2019 Labor Day weekend 8.62 million…
August’s employment report is best described as Goldilocks. Most importantly, 786,000 persons entered the labor force, pushing the labor force participation rate from 62.1% to 62.4%. While some found work, others didn’t. As a result, the unemployment rate rose from…
The Friday File: Recently, a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card sold at auction for $12.5 million, a new record that broke the previous sports memorabilia record set this May of $9.3 million for Diego Maradona’s “hand of God” jersey…
As recently as four months ago, the March Case-Shiller National Home Price Index (which is an average for the three months ending in March) showed M-o-M price appreciation of 2.1%. In April, the appreciation rate declined to 1.7%, in May…
The combination of high inflation, rising rates, and a European war has frozen IPOs. YTD, only $5 billion has been raised, a year ago the amount raised exceeded $100 billion, and on average going back to 1995 the amount raised…
The total cost of the student-loan relief package is about $500 billion to the Treasury, with about $360 billion in immediate cancelled debt costs and the rest coming over about a decade. As for inflationary impacts, they are likely to…
This past Friday, Fed Chair Jay Powell gave a major speech outlining the Fed’s monetary policy approach for the near future. Importantly, the phrase ‘soft landing’ was nowhere to be found, a deliberate decision. Instead, the word ‘pain’ made an…
The Friday File: In 1995, Americans ate 75 lbs/year of beef, 50 lbs/year of pork, 37 lbs/year of chicken and 8 lbs/year of turkey. Since then, the amount of pork consumed has not budged and in 2022 is still 50…