MarketsThe worst years in the U.S. stock market have historically led to good future returns. (awealthofcommonsense.com)Why the bond bear market may already be over. (pragcap.com)StrategyAn eight-step plan for dealing with a bear market including 'Check your expectations.' (morningstar.com)Seven questions about the economy and stock market including 'How will rapidly rising mortgage rates impact housing prices?' (awealthofcommonsense.com)CryptoWhy this cryptocurrency crash is different. (theatlantic.com)The Ethereum network is getting closer to a big overhaul. (fortune.com)It looks like crypto has its own insider selling problem. (investmentnews.com)CompaniesWhy the downturn could enhance the power of Big Tech. (nytimes.com)How inflation affects companies differently. (aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com)Where Peloton ($PTON) went wrong: assuming the good times would last. (wsj.com)Tesla ($TSLA) has more problems than just a an unhinged CEO. (nytimes.com)StartupsM.G. Siegler, "Timing can make great companies look dumb and dumb companies look great." (500ish.com)Not every startup is in the same boat. (crossstack.substack.com)The private markets are filled with overpriced companies. (howardlindzon.com)It's going to take a while to work through the problems in VC land. (avc.com)GlobalThe case for a global recession is growing. (ft.com)Who won the China-U.S. trade war? Probably Vietnam... (wsj.com)Mum's the word. The NBA is back on in China. (espn.com)PolicyWhat lessons can we take away from the fiscal response to Covid? (stayathomemacro.substack.com)Pandemic relief programs were beset with fraud. (washingtonpost.com)Why so many public health officials left in the wake of the pandemic. (scientificamerican.com)Why does the U.S. Supreme Court still not have a formal ethics code? (theatlantic.com)Mass shooters, by and large, get their guns legally. (nytimes.com)EconomyWhy inflation is likely set to cool, including improving supply chains. (tker.co)The economic schedule for the coming week. (calculatedriskblog.com)Earlier on Abnormal ReturnsTop clicks last week on the site. (abnormalreturns.com)What you missed in our Saturday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)Podcast links: identifying talent. (abnormalreturns.com)Things are tough out there. Here is some required bear market reading. (abnormalreturns.com)A Q&A with Brian Feroldi author of “Why Does the Stock Market Go Up.” (abnormalreturns.com)Writing IS thinking. (abnormalreturns.com)Are you a financial adviser looking for some out-of-the-box thinking? Then check out our weekly e-mail newsletter. (newsletter.abnormalreturns.com)Mixed mediaA review of "Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World," by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross. (city-journal.org)Why working through a Covid infection is a bad idea for everyone involved. (annehelen.substack.com)When it comes to hybrid work everyone is just winging it. (nytimes.com).....»»

Former President Donald Trump shared a platform at CPAC Hungary with Zsolt Bayer, who has used the N-word and described Jews as "stinking excrement." Former President Donald Trump speaks during the American Freedom Tour at the Austin Convention Center on May 14, 2022 in Austin, TexasBrandon Bell/Getty Images Former President Donald Trump spoke via video at CPAC Hungary on Friday. Zsolt Bayer, a notorious Hungarian journalist, spoke shortly after Trump, The Guardian reported. Bayer has previously made antisemitic and anti-Roma comments and has used the N-word in his journalism. Former President Donald Trump shared a platform at a major right-wing conference in Hungary with a journalist who has previously made antisemitic comments, referred to Roma people as "animals," and used racist slurs, according to The Guardian.Trump spoke on Friday via a video call at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary, an offshoot of the right-wing US political conference, The Guardian reported.The conference also featured speeches by Tucker Carlson, Mark Meadows, and Candace Owens, per the conference's website. Trump's speech saw him heap praise on Hungary's authoritarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, The Guardian reported, and came shortly before journalist Zsolt Bayer took to the stage.Bayer, a Hungarian ultra-conservative media figure, has received widespread criticism for offensive comments.In 2011, per The Guardian, he used the phrase "stinking excrement" to refer to British Jews.In 2013, Bayer wrote a piece in which he described Roma people as "animals" who are "unfit to live among people." The publication was fined and the content was ordered to be removed from the internet.During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Bayer used a racist slur to describe Black people in a blog. He also wrote an opinion article, in November 2020, in which he used the N-word.Bayer was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit in 2016 by Orbán — a move that was condemned by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Bayer has a long record of racist speech and has written highly provocative antisemitic and anti-Roma articles in the Hungarian media," the museum said in a statement in August 2016. The last speaker at the CPAC Hungary even was the far-right US blogger Jack Posobiec, said The Guardian. Insider reached out to Trump's post-presidency office and did not immediately receive a response.Insider also reached out to the organizers of CPAC, who also did not immediately reply, but published a statement on the conference's website describing criticism as "coordinated smears by the Leftist media." "CPAC happily takes the arrows aimed at us by the globalist, socialist Left whose objective is the submission of humanity to serve their radical agenda," said the statement. Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Christian Smalls went from getting fired by Amazon to kickstarting the labor movement. It's a tipping point after years of declining union membership. Union organizer Christian Smalls speaks following the April 1, 2022, vote for the unionization of the Amazon Staten Island warehouse in New York.Andrea Renault/AFP via Getty Images The past year saw Striketober, a Great Resignation, and dozens of Starbucks unionized. Plus, President Joe Biden has called himself the "most pro-union president" ever. But a professor says it's Amazon Labor Union's win that could be the tipping point for organized workers. It's been a big year for the American labor movement. Thousands of workers hit the picket line for Striketober, union organizers made it to the White House, and Starbucks unions are spreading across the country.All of that came with a rising number of workers quitting their jobs, reaching a new high in April 2021 that has continued to climb. Ileen DeVault, a professor of labor history in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, told Insider she's had a lot of reporters calling to ask if these events are changing the trajectory of the decades-long decline in union-membership rates. Her answer was simple: "No.""It's a drop in the bucket," she said, noting that unionizing a single Starbucks location would add, at most, a few dozen workers to total union membership rates. Even with the momentum and media attention, unionization rates are still at historic lows — and there's a long way to go before unions even approach the strength seen during the unionization highs of the 1950s."I've said over and over again that the real change would come when the first Amazon warehouse unionized," DeVault said. "I think that's a major change."In April, that happened.The upstart Amazon Labor Union pulled off a surprise victory at the JFK8 Staten Island warehouse — marking a first for the tech-retail behemoth that employs at least 950,000 workers nationwide. Amazon fired ALU's founder, Christian Smalls, in 2020. Now, Time Magazine asks if he's "the future of labor." Smalls recently traveled to the White House, where President Joe Biden commended him."Obviously, the Amazon workers in Staten Island, the Starbucks all across the country, other organizing drives going on, there is something afoot here," Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh said at the White House during the meeting. In a blog post after the union win, Amazon said that it was "disappointed with the outcome of the election in Staten Island because we believe having a direct relationship with the company is best for our employees."A burst of activity after decades of decline in union membershipThe Congressional Research Service found that the worker-unionization rate hit a postwar high of 34.8%  in 1954. Since then, unionization membership has mostly been in decline.In 1983, the first year with comparable data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership was at 20.1%, nearly twice what it is today.The Economic Policy Institute attributes falling union rates to labor laws — such as allowing companies to make anti-union meetings mandatory — that are "tilted" toward employers. Jennifer Abruzzo, the general counsel for the National Relations Board, wants to end this precedent.The labor movement, the Biden administration, and progressives have also rallied around the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would provide new protections for organizing workers. The bill has passed the House, but it's stalled in the Senate and unlikely to move."Let's hope it stays that way," Sean Redmond, the vice president for labor policy at the US Chamber of Commerce, wrote in a blog post. "Maybe then union leaders will think of ways to improve their product that will convince more people to buy it willingly."But even if the law stays as it is, that might not curb the upswell of organizing. The National Labor Relations Board has already reported a 57% increase in union-election petitions in the first half of fiscal year 2022."The law being broken is probably the biggest challenge, but workers aren't waiting, as we've seen," Liz Shuler, the president of the AFL-CIO, the country's largest labor federation, told Insider. "We're not waiting around for labor-law reform. People are out organizing despite the roadblocks. I think the public support has given a huge boost to working people."Businesses are taking note; UBS said in an April note that it's a labor "environment that has not been seen for decades." While UBS said it's too early to call pro-unionization a trend, it noted that Starbucks has "momentum" — and predicted that JFK8 won't be the only Amazon warehouse to unionize."I think we're gonna see more and more organizing happening in this country," Walsh said. "I've spoken to a lot of people, I've spoken to a lot of unions, I've spoken to a lot of companies. And I think a lot of companies are cognizant of this."Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, plans to launch a new $600 million metaverse fund.  What Happened: In a recent blog post, Andreessen Horowitz announced the launch of the fund, which would support innovation in the gaming industry and help build the infrastructure of the metaverse. read more.....»»

Louisiana's Bill Cassidy said the state's maternal death rate isn't so high if you "correct our population for race," Politico reported. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite Sen Bill Cassidy said his state's high maternal death rates are more standard if you "correct for race," Politico reports. Louisiana has a high Black population and one of the worst maternal death rates in the US. Experts called this framing "disturbing," arguing the state must improve healthcare for Black women. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy said that the state's poor maternal mortality rate is only an "outlier" because of the high proportion of Black women in the state, according to Politico. Cassidy's comment was featured in Politico's in-depth exploration of Louisiana's maternal death rates, which are among the worst in the country. The state ranks 47 out of 48 states assessed for maternal deaths, state officials said. Cassidy told the outlet that this is partly because "about a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality."So, if you correct our population for race, we're not as much of an outlier as it'd otherwise appear."He continued: "Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality."Overall, according to Louisiana's Department of Health, "four black mothers die for every white mother" in the state. It outpaces a three-to-one ratio nationwide, which is already the worst in the developed world, Politico reported. Dean Michelle Williams of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health discussed Cassidy's comments in a blog post. (The Politico article was produced as part of a series partnership with the school.)Williams said: "It's no mystery why maternal mortality rates are so high among Black women. They are high because of the devastating impacts of structural racism and individual bias."According to the CDC, Black women are disadvantaged in their "access to care, quality of care, prevalence of chronic diseases, structural racism, and implicit biases" in healthcare.Williams said she found Cassidy's framing "disturbing.""This is not a moment to quibble about how states are ranked," Williams wrote."It's not a moment to correct for race. It's a moment to assert that Louisiana — precisely because it has such a large population of Black women — must seize a leadership role in making pregnancy and childbirth safer for all."She noted that Cassidy has supported numerous public health measures, including those that protect pregnancies. Cassidy's comment comes soon after Politico's publishing of a leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a measure that the Senator supports. Anti-abortion organization Louisiana Right To Life says that Cassidy has a "100% pro-life voting record." Louisiana is also one of 13 states with "trigger laws" that would come into effect to ban abortion if Roe v. Wade, as looks likely, is overturned. Following the Roe leak, top British medical journal The Lancet warned in a stark editorial statement that "women will die" if the decision is overturned. Furthermore, Black women will be the group most affected by the move, ABC News reported.Asked by Politico how maternal death rates may be affected by the measure, Cassidy said: "If we're using abortion to limit maternal deaths, that's kind of an odd way to approach the problem."Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

The Epidemic Nobody Talks About: Burnout Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, Burnout makes everyone uncomfortable, so it's largely a silent epidemic. Epidemics are not just biological in origin. A strong case can be made that a silent epidemic has been sweeping the nation for years, an epidemic few acknowledge: burnout. People say "I'm really burned out," and most of the time they mean they're temporarily exhausted, but after a weekend of respite they're back at work on Monday. The epidemic kind of burnout isn't temporary. Taking a weekend off doesn't restore one's ability to work. This kind of burnout is the collapse of one's ability to go to work at all, a physical, emotional and psychological collapse. Burnout isn't just the result of overwork. It's the collapse of the entire no limits, self-exploitation way of life. People who haven't burned out are at a loss to understand this collapse, as it's so far outside their experience. Those who love their jobs and have boundless energy can't understand those who have been running on empty for far too long and are now too exhausted to get out of bed. Lacking any direct experience of such a collapse, the non-burned-out person may offer suggestions that work on temporary exhaustion but do not help the truly burned out: take the weekend off, listen to calming music, etc. I could not understand what burnout felt like until I experienced it myself. I burned out at age 33 and more recently, again at age 65. Work has changed dramatically in the 52 years I've been working. Some jobs have remained pretty much the same, but most have changed in ways few recognize or understand. The pressure on workers has increased on multiple levels. Insecurity is the norm. As I've repeatedly documented, the purchasing power of labor has declined for 45 years. Financialization and globalization have tended to make the already-wealthy much wealthier while increasing the psychological and financial pressure on the non-wealthy. From the point of view of the already-wealthy who dominate the media, politics, healthcare, academia and institutions, the status quo works great because they're doing great. In my view, our society and economy are now optimized to burn people out. It's cause and effect: the only possible output of a system optimized for self-exploitation, financial insecurity and open-ended work responsibilities is burnout. Even those with high status and income are burning out. (See chart of physicians below.) I realize many people will object to this characterization of our economy, and by extension, our society. But those who object must ask if their own privileged position has something to do with their objection. I've addressed these changes in the economy and work since 2009. The pressures on non-wealthy participants have accelerated sharply since 2008. Burnout Nation (May 14, 2019) Push Them Hard Enough and the Productive Class Will Opt Out of Servitude (April 26, 2019) Three decades ago, there were near-zero resources to aid the burnout. There are more resources now, but the vast majority are focused on getting the burnout back to the life that burned them out in the first place. I couldn't find any book or account that spoke to my experiences. None provided what I was looking for: a practical guide to the entire experience and recovery process of burnout. I realized that I should write the book I wanted but could not find. This book is my account of what helped me: a practical reckoning that laid the foundations for a practical renewal. This book is focused on burnout in the context of the society and economy we live in. My hope is that it will help those who aren't burned out better understand those who have burned out. I am not an expert in burnout, I am only an expert in my burnout. You can read the Introduction and Table of Contents and the first chapters for free. Burnout makes everyone uncomfortable, so it's largely a silent epidemic. In my experience, there are no easy one-size-fits-all answers to burnout, but there is a way forward. *  *  * My new book is now available at a 10% discount this month: When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.   Tyler Durden Sat, 05/21/2022 - 10:30.....»»

Thanos Was Wrong: From Currency Resets To Limiting Infinite Growth Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog, A couple of weeks ago, RT ran a story purporting to explain the mystery behind the rise in exchange rate of the Russian ruble. It touched on a concept I’ve talked about vis a vis Russia for years: the disparity between nominal GDP which yields a number roughly the size of Canada and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) GDP which puts Russia on par with Germany. While everything quoted here I feel is worth considering seriously, that GDP disparity that is what is important. … the West had defaulted on its obligations to Russia when it froze the assets of the country’s central bank. “This is the abolition (something like cancel culture) of the rules of international financial relations based on global total return swaps, redistribution of risk, guarantees of property rights and distribution of seigniorage.” It was these rules that determined the old ruble exchange rate and the approaches to its establishment that we are accustomed to, the expert said, adding that those rules “no longer apply.” Kopylov explained that the strengthening of the ruble is due to the fact that it is now based purely on exports and imports, and its value is determined by its purchasing power parity (PPP). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated the Russian currency’s PPP at the end of 2021 at 29.127 rubles per one dollar. According to the Big Mac Index, that rate stood at 23.24 rubles to the dollar. I have pointed out for years that all discussions of the Russian economy in terms of nominal GDP are bogus.  Nominal GDP is spending within the Russian economy converted through the RUB/USD exchange rate. But that metric is irrelevant.  It doesn’t say anything about what that spending buys the average Russian. GDP is a stupid metric.  It should be called GNS, Gross National Spending. It is a dumb way to measure the ‘output’ of a society.  It’s at best a very gross approximation but it is, again, just aggregated spending. This is the fundamental fallacy of Keynesian demand-side economics and all theories about which economies are expanding or contracting based on spending are literally bogus. But we have all been trained to believe in GDP as some all-powerful measure of growth and power.  It’s not anything of the sort.  When you have the ability to print money at will to bid up the cost of the goods purchased with that money, how is that telling you anything about the health of the country, the people… or frankly anything at all? What it’s telling you is that spent money, but did you take that money from the pool of real savings and deploy it into sustainable economic projects? Or did you print the money out of thin air, issue debt that borrows against the future labor of the country’s citizens (or their kids…. or their grandkids) and pay someone to fulfill a ‘shovel-ready’ job of digging a hole and filling it back in? GDP, in statistical terms, is NOT an independent variable because of this. It’s value is dependent completely on the people controlling the inputs to it.  Therefore, as data, it is worthless.  As a scientist, I would throw it out of any discussion because it can’t be controlled for.   This is why the discrepancy between the ruble’s purchasing power internally is so much higher than its purchasing power externally.  Pre-war the ruble traded at 75 or so versus the dollar. But it’s PPP value was less than 30?  This means Russian GDP is at least (by this flawed metric) 2.5 higher than the nominal value. This is how the Russian economy in PPP terms is actually larger than Germany’s. But even then, PPP GDP is still a terminally flawed metric as a measure of output. It gets us closer to fair comparisons between country’s but it still says nothing about the economic value of the things the country spent their money on. The funny thing is Russia’s economy shouldn’t be larger than Germany’s in real terms, since most of Russia’s output is base commodities, which have the lowest value-added component of any good in a market.  The whole point of a sophisticated division of labor and economic system is to build up value through each stage in the production chain. Cars, for example, should have more ‘value’ associated with them than the iron ore that went into making the frame. This tells you how out of whack the world is in terms of the diversion of capital to unsustainable activity it actually is if a commodity producer is leading a manufacturing giant in wealth generation.  This is exactly why the currency shift from debt-based to commodity-based money is going to be so painful. And why the debt issuers are willing to risk nuclear war over it occurring. To them this is the end state of their power.   From Finite World to Infinite Growth In a recent article on this blog, I did a quick and dirty takedown of the globalist talking point about infinite growth in a finite world. That gaslighting was at the core of the conflict in the big story of the Marvel Cinematic Universe of films, which centered on Thanos coming to bring balance by destroying half of the life in the Universe. Davos has gaslit two entire generations of westerners in the Malthusian talking point that you can’t have infinite growth in a finite world. All of their economic dogma is predicated on this. It doesn’t matter that this talking point is predicated on an inane premise, truth is, after all treason, at this point in the economic and cultural cycle. But, to try and explain quickly for the slow-witted. GDP growth is not necessarily real growth. It’s just spending. It says nothing for the quality of the spending or whether, in real terms, the people spending the money are materially better off than they were at a previous point in time. What isn’t measured by GDP is VALUE. Value is what we crave, the ability to plan further into the future, using our ingenuity to find better mousetraps to build and more efficient, and yes sustainable, ways of deploying scarce capital and time. When you have a monetary system and regulatory regime designed to thwart that to stop growth then you have the world we live in today. That infinite growth is a subjective, not objective, measure…. not in GDP terms but in the ‘alleviation of human misery’ terms. Davos absolutely doesn’t want this because a world where everyone gets maximal value for their time is a world without our need for them. But in order for us to have a discussion about this, I need to lay out some base assumptions. First, that we have owners who agree with Julian Huxley that growth will lead to destruction of the planet, therefore we should not have any more meaningful growth. Second, only those who are currently with power have the will, intelligence and expertise to guide us to this next phase of humanity’s existence. In service of these controlling ideas: They have erected systems and barricades to real growth for decades in real terms, i.e. energy usage per unit ‘wealth’ … some call this EROEI = Energy Returned over Energy Invested.   They have stymied more efficient use of human capital by running us around in mazes which are dead ends — Light Water Nuclear Reactors vs. oil, replacing both with Solar, Wind, Electric Vehicles, etc. They foment wars to divert capital to useless weapons rather than applying it things which make our lives better, more predictable.  They specifically divert spending (GDP) to humans building systems which increase chaos and unpredictability rather than decrease it. They empower and expand bureaucracy to keep otherwise ‘useless people’ employed with meaningless jobs They have supported cultural degradation which undermined the nuclear family and local culture by promoting women into the workforce, divorcing them from their core strength as mothers and caregivers and putting them effectively on welfare, UBI. These are all the basic distractions which force us to waste most of our productive time running around on a hamster wheel of arbitrary obstacles in order to eke out some small measure of comfort. The basic reason for Human Action, as defined by Mises, is to alleviate future uncertainty.  Man acts purposefully towards that end, otherwise he wouldn’t act or he would act differently.   That said, we can have our rationality diverted to purposes which do not serve our better interests because of the perverse incentives placed in front of us through artificial barriers to capital formation.   Therefore, if we were acting with purpose towards our most efficient and creative ends to a more predictable future, infinite GDP growth would be a no-brainer. This isn’t to say infinite GDP growth is infinite resource utilization.   Because as you travel up the production chain to higher order goods, you produce more value relative to the input commodities… if you didn’t, then you wouldn’t do it. You would do something that did. What’s more valuable a tree growing on your property or the lumber you turn it into and then use to build a shelter? For an even more idiotic example, is there really $10,000 difference between a BMW 230i starting at $37.5k and a Ford Mustang in terms of raw input commodities, especially when, in the real world we’re talking more like $15,000?  No.  Both are roughly 3500 lbs of aluminum, steel, leather and plastic. So, where’s the value difference?  In the materials?  Again, not really.  It’s in the intellectual property of the engineering, the final driving experience and the perception of value by the consumer.   But in terms of them being a tool for potential wealth creation, the two care are, really fungible.  They can transport up to 3 people (realistically) and a little bit of cargo somewhere to do whatever it is that they do. Is that reflected in the purchasing price of these cars?  No.  Not at all.  But, if we sell more BMW’s as a percentage of Mustangs sold, are we expected to impute a higher capability of sustaining wealth production because of higher overall spending as measured by GDP? Sadly yes. And that’s where the disconnect is.   This is why, fundamentally, GDP is a poor measure of ‘growth.’   That said, absent the diversion of capital to the unsustainable as practiced by Davos you can have constant ‘growth’ in value terms. It is better stated that ‘growth’ is the alleviation of human suffering and/or uncertainty, which is what value is.   This is true because if we’re driving costs down to utilize natural resources ever more efficiently thanks to proper pricing of the money used to procure the input commodities, then we can move more of our spending out of base commodities into higher order goods with higher returns of perceived value. Moreover, the Malthusian/Huxleyian argument presupposes somehow that the Universe isn’t governed by the Laws of Conservation. Iron isn’t destroyed when a car is trashed, we just store it in a junkyard. The same goes for landfills and plastic. The problem we have today is that we act within a system which skims all the wealth created by our actions to the betterment of the people who produce nothing at all. All they produce is money and bad ideas, the former of which is based on your future labor and the latter sustained by it. Then they dupe you into selling your future labor back to you at a vig while trying to take all the intellectual property rights for your innovation and skill. We call these people Venture Capitalists. No wonder the Marxists see this system as exploitative. It is! But it’s also not the only way things can and/or should be organized. This isn’t a fault of capitalism and property but of our not properly pricing the cost of the State and all of its enforcement of our ‘rights.’ This is what leads to the concentration of power in the hands of rent-seeking douchebags and vandals. Sustainable growth where all factors of production are properly priced up the value-adding chain is the first step. That will lead to the rewards being shared more equitably by all involved. That model is not only possible, it’s the only system that is inevitable. Davos decided if we were not controlled and forced onto low-margin hamster wheels we would strip-mine the planet and destroy it.  That’s why it needs to be controlled and real growth curtailed.   What we have now is a system of maximal wastage of natural resources with minimal returns: cheap money begetting conspicuous consumption of resources while erecting barriers to new, competitive technologies at the expense of the producers of those input commodities. Thanos in the Marvel films makes the same mistake Davos and Huxley made, deciding in their hubris and arrogance that because they couldn’t see a solution to a problem they’d defined, that solution did not exist. This justified their acquisition of power unlimited to re-make the world in their image. The truly despicable nature of the Marvel films is that they spend so much time trying to make Thanos’ quest a noble one, a sympathetic one, rather than the rantings of a small-minded homunculus. I wonder who ordered that rewrite of the script to Infinity War? The Return of the Commodity King This is why the ruble is so undervalued, up until recently commodities had been driven below their cost of production through the corruption of all of us into the land of cheap money. It is why now, with the changes coming to the monetary architecture of the world, the ruble’s real purchasing power will finally be expressed, forcing commodity inflation in real terms on those whose currencies are overvalued. Gresham’s Law has never been wrong. Overvalued money circulates to procure unearned goods in the real world. Undervalued money is hoarded because savings is the pre-requisite of capital deployment. We are at the end of the cycle where the pile of real wealth has built up for decades unable to express itself while the ultimate psy-op fuels the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. When the confidence in the overvalued money (debt) falls, inflation rises rapidly as people demand goods and eschew money.  This will raise the prospect of the undervalued money (commodities) entering into circulation as its true value is finally expressed in the market. At that point you will then see what the real growth rate of the world is.  Gary North used to say that prior to the early 1800’s the real rate at which wealth compounded was ~1% annually.  Then something changed and it doubled to 2% and that scared the bejeesus out of the elites because too many people were getting rich too quickly to need them to look out for their interests.   Now you know why the Club of Rome began in the 1850’s, why central banking was so bitterly fought over here in the US then. It’s why Marx’s insane ideas were adopted by those with generational power.  It was to STOP our growth as a species, not keep it from destroying the planet, but their system of unearned privilege. *  *  * Join my Patreon if you like earning things Tyler Durden Sat, 05/21/2022 - 07:00.....»»

Don’t let the title deceive you. Ryan Graves didn’t build his wealth through a ride-sharing side hustle. Rather, it was a tweet. Let’s go all the back to January 5, 2010. At the time Uber was less than a year old. And, then CEO Travis Kalanick tweeted: “Looking 4 entrepreneurial product mgr/biz-dev killer 4 a […] Don’t let the title deceive you. Ryan Graves didn’t build his wealth through a ride-sharing side hustle. Rather, it was a tweet. Let’s go all the back to January 5, 2010. At the time Uber was less than a year old. And, then CEO Travis Kalanick tweeted: “Looking 4 entrepreneurial product mgr/biz-dev killer 4 a location based service.. pre-launch, BIG equity, big peeps involved—ANY TIPS??” .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Ray Dalio Series in PDF Get the entire 10-part series on Ray Dalio in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q1 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more In response to Kalanick’s tweet, Graves replied: “Here’s a tip. email me :)”. Graves, wisely, also included his email address. When he got the job, Graves was a manager in a management training program in information technology at General Electric. But, that was all about to quickly change. Thanks to that tweet, Ryan Graves became the first Uber employee on March 1, 2010. “I was hitting Craigslist, Twitter, and other channels looking for the right candidate,” Kalanick documented in a blog post from 2010 about Uber’s founding. “What resulted was the Awesomest job post and response I’ve ever seen.” Obviously, Uber went on to become, well, an ubersuccessful company. Sure, there have been ebbs and flows. As of April 2022, Uber’s market cap is $63.41 billion. As a result, Uber is the 242nd most valuable company in the world based on market cap. Because of his equity in the company, within five years of joing the company, Graves became a billionaire. In 2016, Graves was listed as the 12th richest entrepreneur under 40. In 2021, his wealth was estimated at $2.1 billion, according to Forbes. While he may no longer be a billionaire. Ryan Graves is still a multimillionarie because he went out on a limb and sent a tweet. From Working for Free to $1.58 Billion Graves’ work history prior to Uber including a position as a database administrator at General Electric and a brief stint at Foursquare in business development. Foursquare initially refused to hire him, but he got the gig through free work. Graves, who was contacted by Kalanick after that iconic initial tweet, is considered Uber’s first employee. In contrast to Kalanick’s aggressive personality, Graves was known as the “Mr. Nice Guy” while at Uber. His colleagues, both inside the company and in broader tech communities, thought highly of him. Early investor in Uber, Chris Sacca and longtime friend praised Graves in several tweets following the news of his resignation in 2017. Graves, wrote Sacca, is “the director most consistently respected by the others and is great at building consensus.” Graves, according to Kalanick, “hit the ground running,” as soon as he joined Uber. “From the day he got going, we spent about 15-20 hours a week working together going over product, driver on-boarding, pricing model, the whole nine. He learned the startup game fast and worked his a– off to build the Uber team and make the San Francisco launch and subsequent growth a huge success,” Kalanick wrote in the aforementioned 2010 blog post. At Uber, Graves was the CEO for almost a year and the senior vice president of global operations for almost seven years. It’s been said that Graves was essential to defining Uber’s core values, like its “super pumpedness,” and its entry into international markets. However, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. Graves resigned from Uber in August 2017 – two months after Kalanick was forced to resign when an investigation into Uber’s culture turned up evidence of sexual harassment and mistreatment. Further, Graves knew about “greyballing,” a method Uber employed to evade regulators worldwide, according to The New York Times. Post Uber Career Even though Graves resigned from Uber in 2017, he remained on the board of directors. Moreover, he was one of the executives who was said to have lead the company while there wasn’t a CEO. And, he also oversaw UberEverything — this includes UberEats and UberRUSH). In 2019, Graves left Uber after Uber named Dara Khosrowshahi as its new CEO. But, he’s still been grinding. In 2017, he founded Saltwater Captial. He still serves as the CEO and the private investment company has invested in companies like Calm and Equator Coffees & Teas. In February 2021, it was announced that Graves would invest $50 million in car insurance start-up Metromile both personally and through Saltwater. Graves will also sit on the board of directors along with Mark Cuban and other institutional investors. In October 2021, Variety reported that actor Kelley Dauten would be portraying Graves in the Showtime anthology series “Super Pumped.” Frequently Asked Questions About Becoming a Millionaire Is there an easy way to become a millionaire? By saving your money as soon as possible, you can take advantage of compounding and become a millionaire. You will earn more interest if you begin saving at an early age. This will also give you the opportunity to earn more money from your interest earning. Your goal should be to save at least 15% of your income. Getting financial advice from a professional and cutting down on unnecessary spending will also help you reach your million-dollar goal. Getting a second job or upgrading your skills are two options you should consider if you are able to do so. Do I need a high-powered graduate degree to become a millionaire? “With condolences to those with grad school debt, an advanced degree does improve your chances of higher lifetime income, but it doesn’t necessarily improve your chances of joining the millionaires’ club,” writes the editors of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. According to “The Millionaire Next Door,” only 18% of those with a net worth of $1 million or more hold a master’s degree, while 8% have law degrees and 6% went to medical school. According to an analysis by Spectrem Group, a consulting firm specializing in wealth research and management, 74% of millionaires hold an undergraduate degree. For billionaires, that number is 70.1%, based on the 2015 Wealth-X census. “Don’t get us wrong: Many graduate degrees are worth the effort,” they adds. “The median annual salary of someone with a professional degree is $98,436 a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, versus $67,860 for the typical four-year college graduate. A high school grad earns just $40,612 annually.” How much do I need to invest to become a millionaire? To become a millionaire, you will need to invest different amounts depending on your life stage. Because you have more time to accumulate wealth and can tolerate more risk when you’re younger, you can afford to sock away less money or make riskier investments. On the flip side, as you get older, you will need to put away more money each month if you delay saving. Can I get rich with zero dollars? The chances of you becoming rich by doing nothing are slim. There are exceptions, though. These include you coming from a wealth family, wining the lottery, or are about to patent the next great invention. Or, you could leap on an opportunity like Graves. Though Graves’ story may seem like a Silicon Valley fairy tale, it is not entirely unique. Adam Lyons, 25, the founder of The Zebra car insurance company, guessed Mark Cuban’s email address, shot him an email and got a deal from the billionaire star of ABC’s “Shark Tank.” Similarly, Elon Musk suggested that a Reddit user “should interview at Tesla” for an analysis he posted on his self-driving vehicle technology. Generally, in order to reach your goal of becoming a millionaire, discipline, a plan, and good advice from a professional is necessary. Article by John Rampton, Due About the Author John Rampton is an entrepreneur and connector. When he was 23 years old while attending the University of Utah he was hurt in a construction accident. His leg was snapped in half. He was told by 13 doctors he would never walk again. Over the next 12 months he had several surgeries, stem cell injections and learned how to walk again. During this time he studied and mastered how to make money work for you, not against you. He has since taught thousands through books, courses and written over 5000 articles online about finance, entrepreneurship and productivity. He has been recognized as the Top Online Influencers in the World by Entrepreneur Magazine, Finance Expert by Time and Annuity Expert by Nasdaq. He is the Founder and CEO of Due. Updated on May 20, 2022, 4:23 pm (function() { var sc = document.createElement("script"); sc.type = "text/javascript"; sc.async = true;sc.src = "//mixi.media/data/js/95481.js"; sc.charset = "utf-8";var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(sc, s); }()); window._F20 = window._F20 || []; _F20.push({container: 'F20WidgetContainer', placement: '', count: 3}); _F20.push({finish: true});.....»»

MarketsOutside of horrible sentiment, there's really very little good market news. (theirrelevantinvestor.com)Trading on macro is a great way to get crushed. (neckar.substack.com)DCABen Carlson, "Dollar cost averaging doesn’t make those emotions go away but it takes them out of the investment process." (awealthofcommonsense.com)How value averaging differs from dollar cost averaging. (wsj.com)StrategyMaking the case for swapping core fixed income for alternatives. (barrons.com)More evidence that opportunities to generate alpha are shrinking. (evidenceinvestor.com)Successful investing is learning how to be wrong. (mrzepczynski.blogspot.com)StartupsWhat YC is telling its founders about the current environment. (techcrunch.com)$100 million venture rounds are in decline. (news.crunchbase.com)GlobalEurope's recent IPOs are in free fall, as well. (news.crunchbase.com)Why the U.S. dollar is so strong. (econbrowser.com)EconomyThe Fed isn't trying to tank the economy. (tker.co)Home inventory has turned positive year-over-year. (calculatedriskblog.com)Earlier on Abnormal ReturnsPodcast links: identifying talent. (abnormalreturns.com)What you missed in our Thursday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)Longform links: the internet paradox. (abnormalreturns.com)Things are tough out there. Here is some required bear market reading. (abnormalreturns.com)A Q&A with Brian Feroldi author of “Why Does the Stock Market Go Up.” (abnormalreturns.com)Writing IS thinking. (abnormalreturns.com)Are you a financial adviser looking for some out-of-the-box thinking? Then check out our weekly e-mail newsletter. (newsletter.abnormalreturns.com)Mixed mediaTyler Cowen, "So don’t buy art to get rich. But if you love the work, it will bring more pleasure than holding a lot of losing investments." (wealthmanagement.com)The world's most expensive car, a 1955 Mercedes-Benz SLR coupe, just sold for $142 million. (cnn.com)Oligarch aside, the superyacht business is strong. (ft.com)There is a global shortage of Rolex watches. (bnnbloomberg.ca).....»»

Well-known publications don't necessarily pay better, and writing for exposure is rarely worth it, says freelance writer Melissa Petro. Freelance writer Melissa Petro recommends always negotiating rates with a new editor or publication.Melissa Petro Melissa Petro is a freelance writer and mom of two based in New York. In over 10 years as a freelancer, Petro says she's learned how to ask for and get paid her worth. Work for money and not clout, always negotiate, and exchange information with other freelancers. Working as a freelance writer may sound alluring for those wanting to escape a 9-to-5, but it's not always easy to be your own boss. When you're no longer tied to an employer (or salary or benefits), it's up to you to make freelancing a reliable and lucrative income stream.As a freelance writer for over a decade, I've been through many ups and downs. In my experience, rates now are lower than they were 10 or even five years ago. As inflation goes up, it can be difficult as a freelancer to make ends meet— unless you figure out how to raise your rates. In my time in the freelance writing industry, I've learned a lot about how to make sure that I'm being paid what I deserve. Whether you've just started out or have been freelance writing for a while, here are four strategies I recommend following to ensure you're getting paid your worth. 1. Work for money, not clout When I started out, I was desperate to share my point of view and practice my craft. I also wanted to establish myself in the industry and make connections with editors at well-known publications. But sometimes in pursuit of these goals, I accepted assignments that paid very little or even nothing at all. I quickly realized that if my goal was to make money, I had to keep my eye on that prize. After years of collecting bylines at as many different publications as possible, I've learned that more respected publications don't necessarily pay better. I also figured out that writing for exposure rarely, if ever, amounted to anything. Until my child's daycare accepts "likes" as payments, I'll keep working for employers that pay me well, regardless of clout.2. Stop accepting low-paying work If you're literally hungry and have nothing but time, it might make sense to crank out blog posts for pennies on the dollar, like I did when I was just starting out. One of my first consistent writing gigs paid just $35 per 700-word post. I was grateful to have what freelancers call a "bread and butter" assignment — an employer you can count on for consistent work — but when I did the math, the hourly wage I was making from that assignment was abysmal. I realized it would benefit me more to quit writing for this low-paying publication and use the time I would've spent cranking out content to seek out better paying gigs.Passing on low-paying assignments raised the bar and led me to better and better paying bread and butters. It also changed my mindset about what I was worth. I no longer saw myself as an aspirational writer but as a seasoned professional. I stopped low balling myself, and if I got an offer below a certain predetermined number and they wouldn't raise the rate, I respectfully declined.3. Always negotiateOne of the first things I learned as a freelancer is that rates aren't set in stone. They vary depending on the publication, the editor, the freelancer, the assignment, and probably even the time of month. When a new-to-me employer accepts my pitch, I always ask for the rate up front. Then, I ask if they can do any better. I say it just like that, "Can you do any better on the rate?" Or I might say, "I produced a similar assignment for this publication and they paid me this amount. Can you match that?" Sure, sometimes they'll say no, but very frequently, they'll offer more. It's only happened to me twice that an editor pulled out on a commissioning after I asked for a higher rate. The first time, the rate the editor was offering was so far below my typical rate that I'm sure she assumed she was doing me some sort of a favor. The second time, the editor's wording was so rude that it felt like a serious red flag, and I assumed that I probably wouldn't have enjoyed working for him anyway.4. Join freelancing networks and share information You might think we're a competitive breed, but as a freelancer it's absolutely in my interest to introduce other freelancers to my editors who will make their lives easier by producing quality work. When I pass a writer the contact of a publication I write for, I will tell that freelancer what I'm paid. Granted, my editor might not start them at the rate they're paying me, but it will give them an idea of the payment range. Similarly, when I see a friend has written for a publication that I'm interested in, I'll reach out and ask who their editor is and what their typical rate is, so that I know if it's even worth my time to pitch them. I mostly pitch and write for the same publications, but I always keep my eyes and ears open for new publications with competitive rates. Joining online freelancing forums is another great way to learn about rates as well as make connections. I've joined networks like Pitch Whiz, a website for journalists and editorial professionals looking to either sell or buy stories, Who Pays Writers, an anonymous, crowd-sourced database of pay rates across print and digital media, and Freelancers Union, a nonprofit organization that educates and advocates for freelancers of all stripes. I also follow various individual freelancers on social media, like Sonia Weiser or former New York Times editor Tim Herrera, who go out of their way to help journalists navigate the industry. Being a writer is a dream job for me, but it's a job nonetheless. I love nearly every aspect of freelance writing, from brainstorming and getting pitches accepted, to working with my editors and seeing my byline go live. But the best part will always be seeing the money deposited in the bank. You should have fun writing, but make sure you get paid.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Russia's elite 1st Guards Tank Army led the assault on the Kharkiv region and paid heavily for the privilege. A burnt-out car on a street in Freedom Square in Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 1, 2022.Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images In mid-May, Ukrainian troops drove the last Russian forces away from Kharkiv after a three-month siege. Ukraine also released documents showing that the Russian unit that led the assault on Kharkiv lost hundreds of vehicles and troops. The heavy losses are due in large part to Russian incompetence and Ukrainian perseverance. Another victory for Ukraine? After a three-month siege, in mid-May Ukrainian troops finally drove away the last Russian forces surrounding Kharkiv, Ukraine's second most populous city.Since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the metropolis of 1.4 million has been under relentless bombardment, costing the lives over 600 civilians by mid-May.With Russian forces driven back, in some cases all the way to the Ukrainian border with Russia, most Russian artillery (save for the heaviest guns and rockets) have been pushed out of range, giving Kharkiv's resilient citizens respite from unrelenting, indiscriminate attacks.Concurrently, Ukraine's military intelligence directorate just published what is apparently a captured Russian log recording armored vehicle losses suffered by the 1st Guards Tank Army in the first three weeks of the war. This elite unit spearheaded the assault on the Kharkiv region, but was withdrawn in April, its commander dismissed after weeks of fruitless attacks.If the documents are genuine — and they don't seem like some elaborate deception, given the believable claims — they imply its sub-units lost between one-quarter and one-half of their tanks in three weeks of fighting around Kharkiv.Russia's only tank armyA Ukrainian serviceman next to a destroyed Russian T-90M tank near the village of Staryi Saltiv in the Kharkiv region, May 9, 2022.REUTERS/Vitalii HnidyiThe 1st Guards Tank Army (1st GTA) is the only tank army in the Russian order of battle. Ordinarily based in Moscow, it counts three powerful divisions and one brigade with more modern armored vehicles and equipment than the rest of the Russian Army. It also has a higher ratio of longer-term, paid contract soldiers instead of conscripts.2nd 'Tamanskaya' Guards Motor Rifle Division2x motor-rifle regiments — [1st, 15th] — BMP-2, BTR-801x tank regiment — [1st] — T-72B3M4th Guards Tank Division2x tank regiments — [12th, 13th] — BMP-2 T-80U and T-80UE tanks1x motor-rifle regiment — [423rd] — BMP-2, T-80BV and T-80BVM tanks47th Guards Tank Division1x tank regiment — [26th]27th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade3x infantry battalions — BMP-3, BTR-82A, BTR-801x tank battalion — T-90A tanksEach Russian tank regiment has around 93 tanks in three battalions, and one battalion of mechanized infantry mounted in BMP infantry fighting vehicles or IFVs (with usually around 42-48 vehicles). A motor-rifle regiment has the inverse: three battalions of mechanized infantry in BTR armored personnel carriers or BMP vehicles, and one tank battalion.The tank army's four units between them mustered around 16 tank battalions and 16 mechanized infantry battalions; a high ratio of tanks even by Russian standards.In the field, these battalions were likely used to generate about two-thirds that number of ad hoc battalion-tactical groups heavily reinforced by artillery batteries and other support units.The army also includes a brigade each dedicated to artillery (mobile BM-27 rocket and 2S19 howitzer systems), Iskander ballistic missiles, Buk medium-range air defense missiles, reconnaissance, and command-and-control.Counting the casualties in UkraineDestroyed Russian military vehicles on the roadside on the outskirts of Kharkiv, February 26, 2022.SERGEY BOBOK/AFP via Getty ImagesIn terms of casualties, the log suggests the 1st GTA reportedly lost 409 personnel:61 killed in action44 missing in action209 wounded in action96 captured/surrenderedThough the high number of surrendered troops for an invading army is notable, this remains a percentage loss rate in the low single-digits for a Russian army-sized formation.However, the document further reports the loss of 308 vehicles. Rob Lee, an expert on the Russian military, highlights some major implication of the loss reports.—Rob Lee (@RALee85) May 16, 20221st Guards Tank Regiment (part of the 2nd Motor-Rifle Division) lost 45 out of its 93 upgraded T-72B3M tanks — i.e. nearly 50% of its combat strength.The 4th Tank Division's three maneuver regiments lost 65 T-80U and T-80UE tanks, and six T-72BVs. That's around 33% of its expected strength of 200-217 tanks.The 27th Motor-Rifle brigade lost nine of its 31 T-90A tanks (29%)Infantry fighting vehicles losses are also startling with the loss of battalion equivalent each of BMP-2 fighting vehicles and BTR-80 APC wheeled APCs across three motor-rifle regimentsIn all the documents, Lee counts the loss of 131 tanks, materially equivalent to more than four entire battalions of tanks out of the roughly 16 in the tank army's order of battle. He also notes the losses seem to correspond with detailed confirmed loss records maintained by the Oryx blog.The T-80s and T-90As are amongst Russia's best operational tanks, protected by various types of explosive reactive armor and "soft-kill" active protection systems to misdirect incoming missiles. The T-80s are also faster, thanks to gas-turbine engines, while the T-90s sport distinctive anti-laser guidance jammers and French thermal sights.The T-72B3M, meanwhile, is a relatively extensive modernization of the less expensive T-72, incorporating many similar systems.Still, they share the vulnerability of having their 125-mm shells stored in an automatic loading system in the turret amidst the crew. This creates a high risk of catastrophic detonation if the armor is penetrated (often resulting in the turret blasting clean off the tank) and poor odds of crew survival.Ukraine's second city takes on a Russian tank armyThe turret of a destroyed Russian tank on the outskirts of Kharkiv, February 26, 2022.SERGEY BOBOK/AFP via Getty ImagesIn truth, the heavy losses likely have less to do with the tanks' technical shortcomings than Russian tactical and operational incompetence as well as Ukrainian perseverance, as explained below.Columns of armored vehicles from Russia's elite Moscow-based 1st Guards Tank Army streamed into and around the big city from their staging area in the nearby Russian city of Belgorod.However as poor and uncoordinated jabs into Kharkiv's suburbs were crushed, the mechanized units instead streamed around the city's flanks, besieging the cities of Sumy, Okhtyrka and Trostyanets to Kharkiv's west (supported by the smaller 6th Combined Arms Army), or Chuhuiv to the southeast. The aim was to open an additional eastern corridor to Kyiv and encircle Kharkiv, as Russian forces had done in Mariupol far to the south.But Russian forces proved incapable of capturing these secondary cities, lacking sufficient infantry to secure dense urban areas and properly screen tanks from ambushes. This allowed outgunned Ukrainian defenders to stubbornly hold on by their fingernails, lasting through weeks of desperate fighting.Meanwhile, the supply lines of Russian spearhead units pushing into central-eastern Ukraine grew longer and sustained heavy losses from Ukrainian raids. And Ukrainian forces based around Kharkiv, including the 92nd and 93rd mechanized brigades, began a series of fast-paced counterattacks that routed multiple Russian regiments, slashing back constricting coils of the attempted encirclement.A Russian armored personnel carrier burns amid damaged and abandoned light utility vehicles after fighting in Kharkiv, February 27, 2022.AP Photo/Marienko AndrewBy the end of March, Russian forces had lost Chuhuiv and their hold on the western cities was growing weaker, not stronger. As the Russian military grudgingly retreated from the approaches to Kyiv, it also relinquished the cities west of Kharkiv. Most of the 1st Guards Tank Army fell back into Russia in the hopes its exhausted forces could be more profitably redeployed for a new campaign targeting the Donbas region.However, a Russian covering force remained around Kharkiv itself, manned by lower-quality Russian separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, apparently as well as the 1st GTA's 200th and 27th Motor Rifle Brigades, detached from Russia's 6th army and 1st GTA respectively.This residual presence was to pin down Ukrainian defenses around Kharkiv — denying their use in Donbas — and to sustain the bombardment, more than out of any short-term expectation of capturing the metropolis.However, Ukraine's military was aware of the weakness of the Russian covering force. In May it mobilized three mechanized brigades around Kharkiv (the 72nd, 92nd and 93rd) to launch a series of counterstrikes, pushing Russian forces northward back toward the border, or eastward against the unyielding banks of the Siverskyi Donets river.The counteroffensive also opened a corridor down the M-03 highway from Ukraine to Izium, the locust-like swarm of Russian efforts to punch through Ukrainian lines in Donbas. In fact, the elements of the 1st Guards Tank Army, including its 2nd Tank Division, are among the forces operating around the city.The elite tank army may be done fighting Kharkiv, but Kharkiv, it seems, isn't done fighting it.Sébastien Roblin writes on the technical, historical, and political aspects of international security and conflict for publications including The National Interest, NBC News, Forbes.com, War is Boring, and 19FortyFive, where he is Defense-in-Depth editor. He holds a master's degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China. You can follow his articles on Twitter.Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Fridays are all about podcast links here at Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s links including a look at the... EconomyMichael Batnick and Ben Carlson recently joined Derek Thompson to talk about the weird goings-on in the economy at present. (theringer.com)Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway talk MMT and inflation with Stephanie Kelton. (bloomberg.com)FinanceMatt Reustle and Marc Rubinstein talk about the past (and future) of Goldman Sachs ($GS). (joincolossus.com)Cardiff Garcia talks with Mary Childs author of "The Bond King: How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost It All." about how finance is portrayed in the media. (shows.acast.com)MarketsJosh Brown and Michael Batnick talk with Dan McMurtrie about the current market carnage. (thereformedbroker.com)Barry Ritholtz talks with Boaz Weinstein, founder and chief investment officer of Saba Capital Management. (ritholtz.com)Justin Carbonneau and Jack Forehand talk with DFA Director of Research Savina Rizova (youtube.com)Robin Powell talks with Antti Ilmanen about his new book "Investing Amid Low Expected Returns: Making the Most When Markets Offer the Least." (evidenceinvestor.com)Jeremy Schwartz and Benjamin Dean talk crypto volatility with Eric Ervin of OnRamp. (wisdomtree.com)TalentPatrick O'Shaughnessy talks with Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross about their new book "Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World." (joincolossus.com)Tyler Cowen talks with Daniel Gross, co-author of the new book "Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World." (conversationswithtyler.com)David Wright talks with Tyler Cowen, co-author of the new book "Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World." (buzzsprout.com)Non-financeCal Newport revisits "The Four-Hour Workweek" with Tim Ferrriss 15 years later. (tim.blog)Dr. Joe Sweeney talks habit making with Charles Duhigg. (alliancefordecisioneducation.org)Shane Parrish talks 'peak mental performance' with Justin Su'a of the Tampa Bay Rays. (podcasts.apple.com).....»»

The "Flash-Crash On Steroids" Scenario Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog, An interesting way to exercise the brain is to imagine what some of us might consider the unimaginable. That is what I ask you to do now. Many investors continue to believe that even if the stock market drops they will be smart enough to get out after taking only a minor hit. Others simply think no way exists for these markets to fall sighting a lack of investment alternatives and what they see as the Fed put having their back. After the financial crisis in 2008 when the market took nasty and violent swings many investors came away with the feeling they learned a few things that will enable them to leap to safety before it is too late. That brings us to today. Almost everyone agrees that after years of moving ever upward this bull market is long in the tooth. Today with  the economy rapidly slowing and debt across the world having exploded it seems any opportunity to panic the bears should not go unexploited. It is against this backdrop that one allows optimist fellas to think, this time is different. The thing many investors are not taking into consideration is that if the market falls like a flash crash on steroids they could be trapped. We have been assured that can't happen because circuit breakers have been put in place to arrest panic-style moves, however, imagine a market that falls, trade is halted, and the market simply does not reopen for days or even weeks. As remote as this might seem remember Japan's stock market has failed to reach the high it made decades ago. Today the Nikkei 225 trades around 25,750 even with the BoJ buying huge amounts of ETFs. See the 1980 to 2015 chart below. Japan's Nikkei 225 has yet to reach the high it made decades ago Also, please take a moment to consider the possibility and the far-reaching ramifications of stocks falling from grace. Not only would active stock market investors get hammered but pensions, 401 plans, and a slew of other investment programs would be affected. While you are imagining this scenario realize that America's stock market is the gold standard and consider how less stable global markets would react in countries like China and Brazil. For a long time, I have been trying to develop a scenario for a market "super crash" and a reasonable map that would arrive at such a situation. To say I'm negative about this economy is a gross understatement. I saw the last housing bubble coming and predicted the crash. I continue to contend that we have never recovered from the Great Recession or corrected the many problems that haunt our financial systems such as derivatives and collateralized debt obligations. By printing money, imploding interest rates, and exploding the Federal Government's deficit we have only delayed the "big one." These two quotes on macroeconomic stabilization and crisis speak volumes. First, from Macresilience; "As Minsky has documented, the history of macroeconomic interventions post-WW2 has been the history of prevention of even the smallest snapbacks that are inherent to the process of creative destruction. The result is our current financial system which is as taut as it can be, in a state of fragility where any snap-back will be catastrophic." And next from Nassim Taleb (author of The Black Swan); "Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface. Although the stated intention of political leaders and economic policymakers is to stabilize the system by inhibiting fluctuations, the result tends to be the opposite." These quotes suggest an analogy with ideas about forest management when natural fires are suppressed. If random fires do not periodically clear away forest underbrush, we see a build-up of flammable material sufficient to power a massive conflagration. I certainly think an equivalent truth applies to financial markets. The longer it has been since a painful collapse, the greater the willingness to pile on leverage and complexity, such that the next crisis becomes unmanageable. The "Too Big To Fail" and other policies implemented since 2008 have distorted markets across the globe and laid the groundwork for "The Big One", or what we will someday look back on as the mother of all sell-offs. Over the years not only have we witnessed many cases of government overreach and many rule changes to protect the system at the expense of the people. What happened in Cyprus years ago should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks money in the bank is safe. A bad haircut, in this case, means you have been robbed. That may be the case if the government reaches in over a long weekend and steals money from your bank account. This is a horrible precedent to set, and the worst part may be how many people accept it saying it is OK as long as it is only on the larger accounts and only impacts the savings of someone else! It is very important to remember these low-interest rates come at a price, a dark side exists to current economic policy. In the long run, the benefits they bring may be outweighed by the distortions they cause. By not taking steps to correct many of the ills lurking in our financial system we have made things worse. Absent are actual structural changes necessary for our economy to become sustainable. Instead, we have put band-aid upon band-aid, upon band-aid while what was necessary was the amputation of a diseased limb. After all the threats that this market has avoided, and sidestepped, some investors have come to think of it as invincible. This market has overcome a struggling euro, the financial cliff, the end of Greece as we knew it, a trade war, and a global pandemic. Back in August of 2016, in a similar article, I warned about being complacent in dangerous times. My studies in "microeconomics," and observations in the current real estate market, both as an owner and hands-on landlord allow me to predict, that we ain't seen nothing yet! While Knowing such a flash crash is highly unlikely it is important we consider it could happen. Remember, none of the oil traders foresaw the oil contango  that occurred in 2020 and shook the oil industry to its core. Tyler Durden Fri, 05/20/2022 - 08:23.....»»

Is The Global Debt Bubble About To Burst? Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog, Is the debt bubble supporting the world economy in danger of collapsing? The years between 1981 and 2020 were very special years for the world economy because interest rates were generally falling: Figure 1. Yields on 10-year and 3-month US Treasuries, in a chart made by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis, as of May 10, 2022. In some sense, falling interest rates meant that debt was becoming increasingly affordable. The monthly out-of-pocket expense for a new $500,000 mortgage was falling lower and lower. Automobile payments for a new $30,000 vehicle could more easily be accommodated into a person’s budget. A business would find it more affordable to add $5,000,000 in new debt to open at an additional location. With these beneficial effects, it would be no surprise if a debt bubble were to form. With an ever-lower cost of debt, the economy has had a hidden tailwind pushing it long between 1981 to 2020. Now that interest rates are again rising, the danger is that a substantial portion of this debt bubble may collapse. My concern is that the economy may be headed for an incredibly hard landing because of the inter-relationship between interest rates and energy prices (Figure 2), and the important role energy plays in powering the economy. Figure 2. Chart showing the important role Quantitative Easing (QE) to lower interest rates plays in adjusting the level of “demand” (and thus the selling price) for oil. Lower interest rates make goods and services created with higher-priced oil more affordable. In addition to the items noted on the chart, US QE3 was discontinued in 2014, about the time of the 2014 oil price crash. Also, the debt bubble crash of 2008 seems to be the indirect result of the US raising short term interest rates (Figure 1) in the 2004 to 2007 period. In this post, I will try to explain my concerns. [1] Ever since civilization began, a combination of (a) energy consumption and (b) debt has been required to power the economy. Under the laws of physics, energy is required to power the economy. This happens because it takes the “dissipation” of energy to perform any activity that contributes to GDP. The energy dissipated can be the food energy that a person eats, or it can be wood or coal or another material burned to provide energy. Sometimes the energy dissipated is in the form of electricity. Looking back, we can see the close relationship between total energy consumption and world total GDP. Figure 3. World energy consumption for the period 1990 to 2020, based on energy data from BP’s 2021 Statistical Review of World Energy and world Purchasing Power Parity GDP in 2017 International Dollars, as published by the World Bank. The need for debt or some other approach that acts as a funding mechanism for capital expenditures (sale of shares of stock, for example), comes from the fact that humans make investments that will not produce a return for many years. For example, ever since civilization began, people have been planting crops. In some cases, there is a delay of a few months before a crop is produced; in other cases, such as with fruit or nut trees, there can be a delay of years before the investment pays back. Even the purchase by an individual of a home or a vehicle is, in a sense, an investment that will offer a return over a period of years. With all parts of the economy benefiting from the lower interest rates (except, perhaps, banks and others lending the funds, who are making less profit from the lower interest rates), it is easy to see why lower interest rates would tend to stimulate new investment and drive up demand for commodities. Commodities are used in great quantity, but the supply available at any one time is tiny by comparison. A sudden increase in demand will tend to send the commodity price higher because the quantity of the commodity available will need to be rationed among more would-be purchasers. A sudden decrease in the demand for a commodity (for example, crude oil, or wheat) will tend to send prices lower. Therefore, we see the strange sharp corners in Figure 2 that seem to be related to changing debt levels and higher or lower interest rates. [2] The current plan of central banks is to raise interest rates aggressively. My concern is that this approach will leave commodity prices too low for producers. They will be tempted to decrease or stop production. Politicians are concerned about the price of food and fuel being too high for consumers. Lenders are concerned about interest rates being too low to properly compensate for the loss of value of their investments due to inflation. The plan, which is already being implemented in the United States, is to raise interest rates and to significantly reverse Quantitative Easing (QE). Some people call the latter Quantitative Tightening (QT). The concern that I have is that aggressively raising interest rates and reversing QE will lead to commodity prices that are too low for producers. There are likely to be many other impacts as well, such as the following: Lower energy supply, due to cutbacks in production and lack of new investment Lower food supply, due to inadequate fertilizer and broken supply lines Much defaulting debt Pension plans that reduce or stop payments because of debt-related problems Falling prices of stock Defaults on derivatives [3] My analysis shows how important increased energy consumption has been to economic growth over the last 200 years. Energy consumption per capita has been growing during this entire period, except during times of serious economic distress. Figure 4. World energy consumption from 1820-2010, based on data from Appendix A of Vaclav Smil’s Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects and BP Statistical Review of World Energy for 1965 and subsequent. Wind and solar energy are included in “Biofuels.” Figure 4 shows the amazing growth in world energy consumption between 1820 and 2010. In the early part of the period, the energy used was mostly wood burned as fuel. In some parts of the world, animal dung was also used as fuel. Gradually, other fuels were added to the mix. Figure 5. Estimated average annual increase in world energy consumption over 10-year periods using the data underlying Figure 4, plus similar additional data through 2020. Figure 5 takes the same information shown in Figure 4 and calculates the average approximate annual increase in world energy consumption over 10-year periods. A person can see from this chart that the periods from 1951-1960 and from 1961-1970 were outliers on the high side. This was the time of rebuilding after World War II. Many families were able to own a car for the first time. The US highway interstate system was begun. Many pipelines and electricity transmission lines were built. This building continued into the 1971-1980 period. Figure 6. Same chart as Figure 5, except that the portion of economic growth that was devoted to population growth is shown in blue at the bottom of each 10-year period. The amount of growth in energy consumption “left over” for improvement in the standard of living is shown in red. Figure 6 displays the same information as Figure 5, except that each column is divided into two pieces. The lower (blue) portion represents the average annual growth in population during each period. The part left over at the top (in red) represents the growth in energy consumption that was available for increases in standard of living. Figure 7. The same information displayed in Figure 6, displayed as an area chart. Blue areas represent average annual population growth percentages during these 10-year periods. The red area is determined by subtraction. It represents the amount of energy consumption growth that is “left over” for growth in the standard of living. Captions show distressing events during periods of low increases in the portion available to raise standards of living. Figure 7 shows the same information as Figure 6, displayed as an area chart. I have also shown some of the distressing events that happened when growth in population was, in effect, taking up essentially all of energy consumption growth. The world economy could not grow normally. There was a tendency toward conflict. Strange events would happen during these periods, including the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union and the restrictions associated with the COVID pandemic. The economy is a self-organizing system that behaves strangely when there is not enough inexpensive energy of the right types available to the system. Wars tend to start. Layers of government may disappear. Strange lockdowns may occur, such as the current restrictions in China. [4] The energy situation at the time of rising interest rates in the 1960 to 1980 period was very different from today. If we define years with high inflation rates as those with inflation rates of 5% or higher, Figure 8 shows that the period with high US inflation rates included nearly all the years from 1969 through 1982. Using a 5% inflation cutoff, the year 2021 would not qualify as a high inflation rate year. Figure 8. US inflation rates, based on Table 1.1.4 Price Index for Gross Domestic Product, published by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. It is only when we look at annualized quarterly data that inflation rates start spiking to high levels. Inflation rates have been above 5% in each of the four quarters ended 2022-Q1. Trade problems related to the Ukraine Conflict have tended to add to price pressures recently. Figure 9. US inflation rates, based on Table 1.1.4 Price Index for Gross Domestic Product, published by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. Underlying these price spikes are increases in the prices of many commodities. Some of this represents a bounce back from artificially low prices that began in late 2014, probably related to the discontinuation of US QE3 (See Figure 2). These prices were far too low for producers. Coal and natural gas prices have also needed to rise, as a result of depletion and prior low prices. Food prices are also rising rapidly, since food is grown and transported using considerable quantities of fossil fuels. The main differences between that period leading up to 1980 and now are the following: [a] The big problem in the 1970s was spiking crude oil prices. Now, our problems seem to be spiking crude oil, natural gas and coal prices. In fact, nuclear power may also be a problem because a significant portion of uranium processing is performed in Russia. Thus, we now seem to be verging on losing nearly all our energy supplies to conflict or high prices! [b] In the 1970s, there were many solutions to the crude oil problem, practically right around the corner. Electricity production could be switched from crude oil to coal or nuclear, with little problem, apart from building the new infrastructure. US cars were very large and fuel inefficient in the early 1970s. These could be replaced with smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles that were already being manufactured in Europe and Japan. Home heating could be transferred to natural gas or propane, to save crude oil for places where energy density was really needed. Today, we are told that a transition to green energy is a solution. Unfortunately, this is mostly wishful thinking. At best, a transition to green energy will need a huge investment of fossil fuels (which are increasingly unavailable) over a period of at least 30 to 50 years if it is to be successful. See my article, Limits to Green Energy Are Becoming Much Clearer. Vaclav Smil, in his book Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects, discusses the need for very long transitions because energy supply needs to match the devices using it. Furthermore, new energy types are generally only add-ons to other supply, not replacements for those supplies. [c] The types of economic growth in (a) the 1960 to 1980 period and (b) the period since 2008 are very different. In the earlier of these periods (especially prior to 1973), it was easy to extract oil, coal and natural gas inexpensively. Inflation-adjusted oil prices of less than $20 per barrel were typical. An ever-increasing supply of this oil seemed to be available. New machines (created with fossil fuels) made workers increasingly efficient. The economy tended to “overheat” if interest rates were not repeatedly raised (Figure 1). While higher interest rates could be expected to slow the economy, this was of little concern because rapid growth seemed to be inevitable. The supply of finished goods and services made by the economy was growing rapidly, even with headwinds from the higher interest rates. On the other hand, in the 2008 to 2020 period, economic growth is largely the result of financial manipulation. The system has been flooded with increasing amounts of debt at ever lower interest rates. By the time of the lockdowns of 2020, would-be workers were being paid for doing nothing. World production of finished goods and services declined in 2020, and it has had difficulty rising since. In the first quarter of 2022, the US economy contracted by -1.4%. If headwinds from higher interest rates and QT are added, the economic system is likely to encounter substantial debt defaults and increasing breakdowns of supply lines. [5] Today’s spiking energy prices appear to be much more closely related to the problems of the 1913 to 1945 era than they are to the problems of the late 1970s. Looking back at Figure 7, our current period is more like the period between the two world wars than the period in the 1970s that we often associate with high inflation. In both periods, the “red” portion of the chart (the portion I identify with rising standard of living), has pretty much disappeared. In both the 1913 to 1945 period and today, it is nearly all the energy supplies other than biofuels that are disappearing. In the 1913 to 1945 period, the problem was coal. Mines were becoming increasingly depleted, but raising coal prices to pay for the higher cost of extracting coal from depleted mines tended to make the coal prohibitively expensive. Mine operators tried to reduce wages, but this was not a solution either. Fighting broke out among countries, almost certainly related to inadequate coal supplies. Countries wanted coal to supply to their citizens so that industry could continue, and so that citizens could continue heating their homes. Figure 10. Slide prepared by Gail Tverberg showing peak coal estimates for the UK and for Germany. As stated at the beginning of this section, today’s problem is that nearly all our energy supplies are becoming unaffordable. In some sense, wind and solar may look better, but this is because of mandates and subsidies. They are not suitable for operating the world economy within any reasonable time frame. There are other parallels to the 1913 to 1945 period. One of the big problems of the 1930s was prices that would not rise high enough for farmers to make a profit. Oil prices in the United States were extraordinarily low then. BP 2021 Statistical Review of World Energy reports that the average oil price in 1931, in 2020 US$, was $11.08. This is the lowest inflation-adjusted price of any year back to 1865. Such a price was almost certainly too low for producers to make a profit. Low prices, relative to rising costs, have recently been problems for both farmer and oil producers. Another major problem of the 1930s was huge income disparity. Wide income disparity is again an issue today, thanks increased specialization. Competition with unskilled workers in low wage countries is also an issue. It is important to note that the big problem of the 1930s was deflation rather than inflation, as the debt bubble started popping in 1929. [6] If a person looks only at the outcome of raising interest rates in the 1960s to 1980 timeframe, it is easy to get a misleading idea of the impact of increased interest rates now. If people look only at what happened in the 1980s, the longer-term impact of the spike in interest rates doesn’t seem too severe. The world economy was growing well before the interest rates were raised. After the peak in interest rates, the world economy generally continued to grow. As a result of the high oil prices and the spiking interest rates, the world hastened its transition to using a bit less crude oil per person. Figure 11. Per capita crude oil production from 1973 through 2021. Crude oil amounts are from international statistics of the US Energy Information Administration. Population estimates are from UN 2019 population estimates. The low population growth projection from the UN data is used for 2021. At the same time, the world economy was able to expand the use of other energy products, at least through 2018. Figure 12. World per capita total energy supply based on data from BP’s 2021 Statistical Review of World Energy. World per capita crude oil is based on international data of the EIA, together with UN 2019 population estimates. Note that crude oil data is through 2021, but total energy amounts are only through 2020. Since 2019, our problem has been that the total energy supply has not been keeping up with the rising population. The cost of extraction of all kinds of oil, coal and natural gas keeps rising due to depletion, but the ability of customers to afford the higher prices of finished goods and services made with those energy products does not rise to match these higher costs. Energy prices probably would have spiked in 2020 if it were not for COVID-related restrictions. Production of oil, coal and natural gas has not been able to rise sufficiently after the lockdowns for economies to fully re-open. This is the primary reason for the recent spiking of energy prices. Turning to inflation rates, the relationship between higher interest rates (Figure 1) and annual inflation rates (Figure 8) is surprisingly not very close. Inflation rates rose during the 1960 to 1973 period despite rising interest rates, mostly likely because of the rapid growth of the economy from an increased per-capita supply of inexpensive energy. Figure 8 shows that inflation rates did not come down immediately after interest rates were raised to a high level in 1980, either. There was a decline in the inflation rate to 4% in 1983, but it was not until the collapse of the central government of the Soviet Union in 1991 that inflation rates have tended to stay close to 2% per year. [7] A more relevant recent example with respect to the expected impact of rising interest rates is the impact of the increase in US short-term interest rates in the 2004 to 2007 period. This led to the subprime debt collapse in the US, associated with the Great Recession of 2008-2009. Looking back at Figure 1, a person can see the effect of raising short-term interest rates in the 2004 to 2007 era. This eventually led to the Great Recession of 2008-2009. I wrote about this in my academic paper, Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial Crisis, published in the journal Energy in 2010. The situation we are facing today is much more severe than in 2008. The debt bubble is much larger. The shortage of energy products has spread beyond oil to coal and natural gas, as well. The idea of raising interest rates today is very much like going into the Great Depression and deciding to raise interest rates because bankers don’t feel like they are getting an adequate share of the goods and services produced by the economy. If there really aren’t enough goods and services for everyone, giving lenders a larger share of the total supply cannot work out well. [8] The problems we are encountering have been hidden for many years by an outdated understanding of how the economy operates. Because of the physics of the economy, it behaves very differently than most people assume. People almost invariably assume that all aspects of the economy can “stay together” regardless of whether there are shortages of energy or of other products. People also assume that shortages will be immediately become obvious through high prices, without realizing the huge role interest rates and debt levels play. People further assume that these spiking prices will somehow bring about greater supply, and the whole system will go on as before. Furthermore, they expect that whatever resources are in the ground, which we have the technical capability to extract, can be extracted. It is important to note that prices are not necessarily a good indicator of shortages. Just as a fever can have many causes, high prices can have many causes. The economy can only continue as long as all of its important parts continue. We cannot assume that reported reserves of anything can really be extracted, even if the reserves have been audited by a reliable auditor. What actually can be extracted depends on prices staying high enough to generate funds for additional investment as required. The amount that can be extracted also depends on the continuation of international supply lines providing goods such as steel pipe. The continued existence of governments that can keep order in the areas where extraction is to take place is important, as well. What we should be most concerned about is a very rapidly shrinking economic system that cannot accommodate very many people. It seems that such a situation might occur if the debt bubble is popped and too many supply lines are broken. There may be a time lag between when interest rates are raised and when the adverse impacts on the economy are seen. This is a reason why central bankers should be very cautious about the increases in interest rates they make as well as QT. The situation may turn out much worse than planned! Tyler Durden Thu, 05/19/2022 - 19:20.....»»

Would you like to have an extra $1,000 per month? Even if you’re a minimalist, I think most of us would jump at this opportunity. And, for good reason. An extra grand a month could totally transform your life. In addition to paying off financial debt, you could also invest in your retirement or buy […] Would you like to have an extra $1,000 per month? Even if you’re a minimalist, I think most of us would jump at this opportunity. And, for good reason. An extra grand a month could totally transform your life. In addition to paying off financial debt, you could also invest in your retirement or buy life insurance with this extra cash. Or, with your newfound financial freedom, you could finally make much-needed home repairs, take a class to enhance your skills, or take that vacation you’ve been talking about for years. if (typeof jQuery == 'undefined') { document.write(''); } .first{clear:both;margin-left:0}.one-third{width:31.034482758621%;float:left;margin-left:3.448275862069%}.two-thirds{width:65.51724137931%;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element input{border:0;border-radius:0;padding:8px}form.ebook-styles .af-element{width:220px;float:left}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer{width:115px;float:left;margin-left: 6px;}form.ebook-styles .af-element.buttonContainer input.submit{width:115px;padding:10px 6px 8px;text-transform:uppercase;border-radius:0;border:0;font-size:15px}form.ebook-styles .af-body.af-standards input.submit{width:115px}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy{width:100%;font-size:12px;margin:10px auto 0}form.ebook-styles .af-element.privacyPolicy p{font-size:11px;margin-bottom:0}form.ebook-styles .af-body input.text{height:40px;padding:2px 10px !important} form.ebook-styles .error, form.ebook-styles #error { color:#d00; } form.ebook-styles .formfields h1, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-logo, form.ebook-styles .formfields #mg-footer { display: none; } form.ebook-styles .formfields { font-size: 12px; } form.ebook-styles .formfields p { margin: 4px 0; } Get The Full Walter Schloss Series in PDF Get the entire 10-part series on Walter Schloss in PDF. Save it to your desktop, read it on your tablet, or email to your colleagues. (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); Q1 2022 hedge fund letters, conferences and more And, considering that 56% of Americans can’t pay for a $1,000 emergency expense, this money could be used to build a considerable emergency fund. However, you’re not going to suddenly end up with $1,000 per month — unless you inherit money or win the lottery. It has to be earned. Now, your first thought could be that you should find a second job. If you’re facing a financial crisis or are working toward a short-term financial goal, this is the right move. On the other hand, you may find this takes you away from your family, friends, or hobbies. Plus, juggling both a full-time job and an internship can be exhausting. Consequently, if your performance or productivity plummets, you could in essence risk your primary source of income. With that said, what are your realistic options for earning an extra grand each month? One of my favorites is through a passive income. What is a Passive Income? Making passive income requires little effort on your part. Often, passive income is referred to as ‘earning money while you sleep’ because it requires almost no involvement. This isn’t the case in every situation, however. However, hopefully, you’ve got the jest on what a passive income is. However, there is a myth about passive income that needs to be busted. Passive income is assumed to be so easy that anyone can earn it within the weekend. Once that’s done, you just sit back and wait for the money to come following in. Truth be told, a lot of work needs to be done upfront. Your passive income sources still need to be updated and maintained even after the initial legwork is completed. One example is blogging. Once it’s up and running and producing a steady revenue stream, it can make a lot of money. But, building a blog to that level takes a lot of effort. And, even if you reach that level, it still needs to be managed. If anything, it’s semi-passive. Although this is an excellent income source, it is not really passive. But, that’s not true with dividends. What is a Dividend (And Why They Rock)? If you want a truly passive income, then let me introduce you to my good friend dividends. For those who aren’t acquainted with my friend here, dividends are payments companies make to shareholders as a way of sharing profits. Investors earn a return on stock investments through dividends, which are paid on a regular basis. Let me also add that not all stocks pay dividends. You should choose dividend stocks if you want to invest for dividends, however. All right, that’s great. What makes dividends a passive income though? Again, most passive income sources will still need a little TLC every now and then. I already talked about blogging. But, property rentals are another example of a semi-passive income. If you don’t maintain your rental, it’s going to depreciate and become loss appealing to renters. In the current era of exceptionally low interest rates, dividend income is in a league of its own. It is possible without any effort to create a portfolio of stocks that generates a steady return of 3%-4% per year. There is no better example of a truly passive investment today than that. Now, let me be real. To reach the desired level of income takes a lot of capital. If you invest wisely, however, you can earn a generous income — even $1000 per month in dividends. And, as soon as it’s up and running, you won’t have to lift a finger to get it going. Besides being a legitimate passive income, I’m a big fan of dividends for the following reasons. Capital appreciation. Even though I’m talking about dividends, dividend stocks can also generate capital appreciation. After all, they’re stocks, and the value of stocks tends to go up over time. If you’re lost, let’s take Pepsi as an example. Right now, the stock pays a dividend of almost 3% per year. The current share price is about $172. But if you purchased the stock 10 years ago? You could have done so at less than $65 per share. The stock value has more than doubled in 10 years, and you have earned 3% in passive income over that time. In other words, dividend stocks have the advantage of not only providing a steady income. But also the benefit of capital appreciation. By doing so, you can protect your investment from inflation and also make sure it grows over the long run. As such, dividend stocks are among one of the very best investments you can make, and are one of the strongest recommendations for the foundation of your portfolio. Dividend stocks should be a core investment, even if you own other investments. Dividend stocks vs. growth stocks. Now, I gotta quickly fill you in on dividend stocks. Unlike growth stocks, dividend stocks tend to rise less in price than growth stocks. Why? As their name implies, growth stocks are all about growth. Most pay little dividends if any at all. All profits are instead reinvested into the business to expand revenue and profit. In fact, over the past decade, growth stocks that don’t pay dividends have produced some of the best results. The most notable example is Amazon (AMZN). In the past 10 years, its stock price increased from $170 per share to more than $3,000 now, but it doesn’t pay a dividend. You won’t get income from these stocks until the day you sell them, so you may want to hold a number of them in your portfolio. The appreciated value will come at that point. But, for now, it’s just paper gain. In short, investing in dividend stocks is a better choice if you’re looking for passive income. Favorable tax treatment. Dividend-paying stocks offer tax benefits in addition to yields above those of interest-bearing securities. Dividends are treated as ordinary income by the Internal Revenue Service. If qualified for the long-term capital gains tax rate, however, they aren’t taxed. Dividends on the stock must be issued by a US corporation or by a foreign corporation with stock trading on a US exchange in order to qualify as a qualified dividend. To qualify for dividends on a stock, you must also own it for at least 60 days. For qualified dividends the tax rates are as follows: If you have a taxable income of less than $78,750, you pay 0%. If you’re single and earn more than $78,750, but less than $434,550, or if you’re married filing jointly, or if you’re a qualified widow, you’re eligible for a 15% tax exemption. Taxes are charged at a rate of 20% of your taxable income that exceeds these thresholds. In any case, if you hold dividend stocks in qualified tax-deferred retirement plans, the lowered (or nonexistent) taxes won’t matter. Holding them in a taxable investment account will give you a big tax advantage though. Where to Find Dividend Stocks Dividend-paying stocks tend to be issued by large corporations with established financial records. Or at least those that pay higher yields consistently over time. They are also commonly known in most cases. Either they have popular products or services, or they’ve been around for a long time and have built a strong reputation. They tend to be popular with investors, too, due to all those qualities and their dividends. Now, when it comes to dividend stocks, companies can choose between different dividend types. The most common types include: Cash dividends. These are the most common dividends. Companies typically deposit cash dividends directly into shareholders’ brokerage accounts. Stock dividends. In addition to paying cash, companies can also share additional stock with investors. Dividend reinvestment programs (DRIPs). With DRIPs, dividends are reinvested into the company’s stock, often at a discount, so investors receive their dividends back sooner. Special dividends. Shareholders receive these dividends when their common stock goes up in value, but they do not recur. When a company has accumulated profits over years but does not need them at the moment, it will issue a special dividend. Preferred dividends. The dividends paid to the owners of preferred stock. Stocks that are preferred function less like stocks and more like bonds. Most preferred stock dividends are paid quarterly, but unlike dividends on common stock, they are typically fixed. With that out of the way, let me go over the three basic ways to invest in dividend stocks. Start with dividend aristocrats. At present, all stocks in the S&P 500 index offer a yield of 1.37%. To begin, you might want to focus on stocks that are paying even higher dividends. Stock screener software can certainly assist with finding those companies. But, there’s a much easier method. You can find many of the best and most stable dividend stocks on a list called Dividend Aristocrats, which includes some of the highest-dividend paying stocks. At the moment, the list includes 65 companies. In order to be considered a Dividend Aristocrat, a company must meet specific criteria. Among these criteria are: At least 25 straight years of increasing dividends to shareholders. An established, large company is generally listed on the S&P 500, rather than one that is fast-growing. The company must have a market capitalization of at least $3 billion. The value of daily share trades for the three months prior to the rebalancing date must have averaged $5 million. However, just because a stock is a Dividend Aristocrat doesn’t automatically make it a good investment. There is no guarantee that a company is permanently on the list just because it is on the list. The list is usually altered every year, as some companies are added and others drop. Dividend aristocrats: What to watch out for. In the case of Dividend Aristocrats, two factors need to be considered: The ratio of dividends paid out. This is the percentage of net profits a company pays out to shareholders in dividends. It is unlikely that the current dividend is sustainable if this number approaches or exceeds 100%. The optimal dividend payout ratio is between 50% and 60%. A dividend yield that is excessive. A dividend yield of 3% to 4% is the average for Dividend Aristocrats. In some cases, higher pay may be due to a company’s share price falling, such as 6%, 8%, or more. This could indicate a company is in distress. Either situation can indicate a dividend reduction is a real possibility. If that happens, not only will your dividend yield be reduced, but the price of the stock will almost certainly fall. High dividend exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Investing in ETFs can be a good alternative to holding individual stocks. For example, you can invest in dividend-paying ETFs. Examples include: Vanguard High-Dividend Yield ETF (VYM) – currently yields 2.99%, with an average return of 10.45% over the past decade. SPDR S&P Dividend ETF (SDY) – has an overall return of 10.23% over the past ten years and a dividend yield of 2.91%. Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD) – pays dividends of 3.69%, and has returned 14.61 percent over the past 9 years (founded in October 2011). These three funds not only show double-digit returns for the past decade but also have current yields much higher than interest-bearing investments. Although you might not become wealthy in the way that high-flying growth stocks do, these funds provide steady, reliable returns. Long-term investors should consider this kind of investment as the centerpiece of their portfolios. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) Essentially, REITs are mutual funds that invest in real estate instead of stocks. However, not any kind of real estate will do. Real estate investment trusts invest mostly in commercial properties, including office buildings, retail space, warehouses, and big apartment buildings. A minimum of 90% of their income must be distributed to shareholders as dividends as well. The net rental income and the capital appreciation distributions of sold properties make up this portion. For simplicity, dividends are usually paid on a monthly basis by REITs. Here are some dividend-paying REITs to consider: Brookfield Property REIT (BPY) – current dividend yield of 7.54%. Kimco Realty Corp (KIM) – current dividend yield of 3.26%. Brandywine Realty Trust (BDN) – current dividend yield of 6.59%. Bear in mind, however, that REITs have not had good long-term performance in the past few years. In spite of paying consistently high dividends, both Brookfield Property REIT and Kimco Realty Corp have experienced major share price declines over the past decade. On the flip side, Brandywine Realty Trust showed the best capital appreciation, holding constant over the past decade. Where to Invest in Dividend Stocks Want to earn a passive income with dividends? The following investment platforms allow you to invest in dividend stocks or high dividend ETFs. As an added perk, each gives you the option of commission-free investment in stocks or ETFs. Robinhood On either your computer or your mobile device, you can trade stocks and ETFs using the Robinhood app. This is also one of the only investment apps that offer trading options as well as cryptocurrency. In spite of the fact that Robinhood is primarily designed for self-directed investors, it provides sufficient company information to identify dividend stocks and track them. Dividend yield, price-earnings ratio, and 52-week high and low prices all fall into this category. The company is currently giving you the chance to earn up to $500 in free stocks by referring friends who open accounts on the app. A stock can be worth anywhere from $2.50 to $200. But, come on. That’s free money just for signing up. Webull Webull works a lot like Robinhood. This company offers commission-free trading of stocks, ETFs, and options, and it has mobile trading capabilities. If you’re on the move constantly, then this is the platform for you. Webull does not require a minimum initial investment. But funds are required for investing. Moreover, it does offer both traditional and Roth IRA accounts, which makes it a better alternative to Robinhood. The reason dividend stocks are ideal for retirement accounts is that they provide long-term growth in addition to income. You will also receive interest on any invested cash held in your account at Webull. M1 Finance Unlike Robinhood and WeBull, M1 Finance allows you to purchase stocks through portfolios called “pies,” which are comprised of many stocks and/or ETFs. There are pre-built pies available, but you can customize your own with the stocks and ETFs you want. If you prefer, you can make a pie out of each of your favorite Dividend Aristocrats, or even pick all 65 stocks. It’s entirely up to you how many pies you want. Dividend Aristocrats can be held in one account, growth stocks in another, or sector ETFs in another. When you have created one or more pies, M1 Finance provides you with another advantage. Your pie will be managed robo-advisor-style, with periodic rebalancing to make sure your allocations remain on target, and even dividends reinvested. You can then sit back and watch your investment grow once you’ve selected your stocks or funds. Ah. The best kind of passive income you could ever ask for. How to Build a Portfolio That Will Make $1,000 Per Month in Dividends Sample Dividend Portfolio For new and small investors, this is a significant barrier. I mean you’d need about $400,000 with a yield of 3% to make $1,000 per month in dividends. But how do you get to $400,000? To begin, let’s take a look at things from a different perspective. Investing in dividends is, by definition, a long-term endeavor. The goal isn’t growth, and most certainly not explosive growth. Rather it’s all about a steady income that hopefully will appreciate over time. So, you’ll need patience and constant investing if you want to make it a long-term investment. The first step, then, is to consider the amount you plan to invest and set up a regular schedule. Suppose, for example, you buy 10 shares of a particular stock each month, or invest $500 per month. Over time, you can gradually add many thousands of dollars to your investments every year. This results in a positive outcome. With your monthly purchases, you will be able to utilize dollar-cost averaging. A method like that greatly eliminates the impact of stock price fluctuations or the timing of the end of the market. Every month, you will just invest the same amount. And, best of you all, you just let compound interest work its magic. If you are investing $500 per month in a growing portfolio of dividend stocks with a 10% return, including dividends and capital appreciation, you would be investing $6,000 per year. Investing at the same level for 21 years will mean you’ll have over $400,000 — even if you never increase it. Dividend Reinvestment Plans commonly called DRIPs, make this possible. These are often offered by the brokerage firm where you hold the stocks. With DRIPs, dividends are used to buy more shares of the same company automatically. The Bottom Line Dividend stocks don’t get the same buzz as growth stocks do. The thing is, they’re the kind of investments that build both permanent wealth and passive income. What’s not to like about that? For retirement portfolios, dividend stocks are especially enticing. Investing in these funds will not only allow you to build wealth over decades but will also provide a steady flow of income when you retire. As the stock prices rise in value over time, you can use the dividend income to cover living expenses. You can choose to receive $2,000, $3,000, or even $5,000 in dividends per month, even though I have been talking about $1,000. You’ll need a much broader portfolio for that. However, if you are planning to become wealthy or retire with a seven-figure account, you might as well earn a decent income while you’re at it. To build a portfolio large enough to generate $1,000, or more, per month in dividends, you must combine regular contributions, dividend reinvestment, and capital appreciation. Article by Jeff Rose, Due About the Author Jeff Rose is an Iraqi Combat Veteran and founder of Good Financial Cents. He teaches people wealth hacking. He is a frequent on CNBC, Forbes, Nasdaq and many other publications. He is author of the book "Soldier of Finance: Take Charge of Your Money and Invest in your Future" where he teaches how he escaped from $20,000 in credit card debt to a life of wealth. Updated on May 19, 2022, 3:58 pm (function() { var sc = document.createElement("script"); sc.type = "text/javascript"; sc.async = true;sc.src = "//mixi.media/data/js/95481.js"; sc.charset = "utf-8";var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(sc, s); }()); window._F20 = window._F20 || []; _F20.push({container: 'F20WidgetContainer', placement: '', count: 3}); _F20.push({finish: true});.....»»

MarketsHow much do real yields matter for stocks? (morningstar.com)Big drops in consumer staples stocks is not a sign of a healthy market. (priceactionlab.com)The bear market is here for inexperienced investors. (nytimes.com)StrategyTen ways to deal with the current bear market including 'Begin your plan by acknowledging you are venturing into the unknown.' (ritholtz.com)The 60/40 portfolio is having a rough time of it. (ft.com)Is the Chinese stock market 'uninvestible' or simply 'unanalysable'? (economist.com)CryptoFTX is launching zero-commission stock trading. (theblockcrypto.com)What is going to happen to all the crypto marketing efforts? (gq.com)Crypto skeptics are having their day in the sun. (theatlantic.com)A look at the business of Bitcoin mining. (paulbutler.org)StreamingCan Disney ($DIS) avoid Netflix's ($NLFX) mistakes? (variety.com)Even long-standing subscribers are quitting Netflix ($NFLX). (theinformation.com)People really do want ad-supported streaming options. (thestreamable.com)EconomyWeekly initial unemployment claims have stopped going down. (bonddad.blogspot.com)The 55-64 crowd is back working at pre-pandemic levels. (nytimes.com)The housing market is slowing. (theatlantic.com)Central bankers are facing an unprecedented set of factors. (time.com)Earlier on Abnormal ReturnsLongform links: the internet paradox. (abnormalreturns.com)Things are tough out there. Here is some required bear market reading. (abnormalreturns.com)What you missed in our Wednesday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)Personal finance links: investor psyches. (abnormalreturns.com)A Q&A with Brian Feroldi author of “Why Does the Stock Market Go Up.” (abnormalreturns.com)Writing IS thinking. (abnormalreturns.com)Are you a financial adviser looking for some out-of-the-box thinking? Then check out our weekly e-mail newsletter. (newsletter.abnormalreturns.com)Mixed mediaBrian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb ($ABNB), on the new world of work. (washingtonpost.com)Workers are shrugging off mild Covid cases to keep at it. (wsj.com)What to do if you are unhappy with your job. (thomaskopelman.com).....»»

Russia will build cars under the Moskvich brand at a factory left behind by French automaker Renault. A Soviet-era Moskvich car.Mihail Siergiejevicz/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Russia is reviving a Soviet-era car brand called Moskvich at an abandoned Renault factory.  Russia is taking over a factory left behind by the French carmaker, which is exiting the country. Renault is one of hundreds of companies leaving Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.  Western businesses continue to flood out of Russia in the wake of Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine. The mass exodus includes French carmaker Renault, which closed a deal on Monday to sell all of its operations in Russia to the city of Moscow and a state-backed group. Russia plans to use Renault's Moscow plant to revive a Soviet-era car brand called Moskvich, the city's mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said in a blog post. A Soviet-era Moskvich car.FOCUS/Toomas Tuul/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesSobyanin said the plant has a "long and glorious history," and that Russia will bring back the "legendary" brand with the help of Kamaz, a Russian manufacturer of heavy-duty vehicles and engines. Moskvich will at first sell traditional combustion-engine cars, and later electric ones, he said. The name Moskvich translates to "Moscovite." A Soviet-era Moskvich car.Petr Svarc/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesRenault reportedly sold its Russian operations for pennies on the dollar — or, perhaps more precisely, rubles on the euro. Renault offloaded its businesses for 2 rubles, the Financial Times and Reuters reported. The automaker said it will take a 2.2 billion euro hit on the transaction.Russia is increasingly isolated from global trade, and that includes cars and car parts. Sobyanin said he would work with the Russian government to localize production of auto parts. The new Moskvich cars will use a Chinese platform, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing two sources. Soviet-era cars became notorious outside the country for their poor quality and reliability issues. The Yugo in particular, a Yugoslavian compact that was briefly sold in the US starting in the 1980s, became the butt of many jokes. (What do you call a Yugo at the top of a hill? A miracle.)Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

There are growing signs that the housing market is slowing Just about everyone agrees that the reason home prices have shot up 34% in the last two years is that there is a lot of demand for housing, but not enough supply. But the U.S. may be at a crucial juncture, at which a lot of properties are coming onto the market just as demand slows, analysts say. That means prices could level off—and, depending on demographics, even start to decline. To be sure, prices are still rising. The median existing-home sales price reached an all-time high in April of $391,200, up 14.8% from a year ago, according to data released May 19 by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Read more: Why Phoenix—of All Places—Has the Fastest Growing Home Prices in the U.S. But other signs indicate that the breakneck pace of rising demand for homes may be slowing, after the cost of a monthly mortgage payment for a median-priced house jumped by 27% from a year ago after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates in March and May. Existing home sales were down for the third straight month in April, falling 2.4%, according to the NAR. Real estate brokerage Redfin says that in April, just 60.7% of home offers written by its agents faced competing offers, compared to 63.4% a month earlier and 67.4% a year ago. A survey from the National Association of Homebuilders showed constructors’ confidence in the market for newly-built single-family homes fell to the lowest reading since June 2020. And the Census Bureau said on May 17 that the number of permits issued for new single-family homes fell 4.6% in April from the previous month. The slowdown in demand comes as the U.S. housing market is finally seeing a surge of newly-built properties, after more than a decade of caution from homebuilders, scarred by the Great Recession. The Biden administration predicts that there will be more units completed this year than in any year since 2006. There were a record number of single-family units under construction in April—815,000—the most since November 2006. There are currently 826,000 multi-family units under construction, the highest level since 1974, according to the Census Bureau. “There are an enormous number of housing units under construction,” says Bill McBride, the author of the blog Calculated Risk, who in 2005 correctly predicted the housing bubble and has since become one of the most reputable sources for housing market analysis. McBride says that housing price growth is going to slow and may flatten by the end of the year, as demand wanes and more supply comes onto the market. There is currently about two months of supply of houses on the market in the U.S., meaning it would take two months for all the homes available to sell, given current conditions, but McBride predicts that prices will stall if that amount reaches about six months worth. Some of these completions have been delayed by supply-chain issues that are currently being resolved. In addition, more housing units are under construction as progressive cities and states relax restrictions on building to tackle the affordability crisis. California, for instance, has essentially banned single-family zoning and made it easier for cities to add multifamily housing. Although these measures went into effect in November, they could start to slowly show up in some neighborhoods as existing homeowners build accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in their yards to increase supply. Oregon essentially got rid of single-family zoning in 2019,, and a similar law is moving forward in Maine. States and cities are also removing requirements that homes are built with parking spaces, which also allows for increased density of properties. Are we in a housing bubble? Like most analysts, McBride says we’re not in a bubble—lending standards are different, for one thing. He likens the current period to the early 1980s, when interest rates jumped and home prices declined, when adjusted for inflation. The most likely scenario today, he says, is the same—home prices will stagnate in today’s dollars, but that means they actually slip a little when adjusted for inflation. Higher interest rates aren’t the only reason demand is tapering. McBride predicted in 2015 that the 2020s would see a big boost in demand as a large cohort of Americans moved into the 30 to 39 age group, a prime home-buying age. But Census data is indicating that there are fewer people in that age group than previously estimated, possibly because of excess deaths attributable to both the opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. “The demographics are solid,” McBride says, “but they aren’t as good as we originally thought, and we don’t know how much worse they are.” Whether companies keep allowing their employees to work remotely will also impact regional supply and demand. A recently-published study says that remote work accounts for half of the home price growth since late 2019, since people moved to areas where they wanted to live, but where there was limited supply. If companies start reversing policies allowing workers to work remotely, demand could slow in many housing markets. Aging populations Some analysts are more pessimistic about how much demographics will affect demand in the U.S., which in 2021 saw the slowest rate of population growth since the country’s founding. Dennis McGill, director of research at Zelman & Associates, whose CEO Ivy Zelman correctly predicted that housing prices would peak in 2005 is one of them. Zelman and McGill say that because the U.S. is aging while the fertility rate declines and immigration slumps, the current housing market may already be overbuilt. U.S. population trends are similar to what happened in Japan two decades ago, Zelman and McGill say. In Japan, the population started shrinking in 2011 and last year, the country experienced its biggest drop on record. In the U.S. births have been below the rate required to keep population levels the same absent immigration since 2007. Immigration has been slowing since 2016. Net international migration added just 247,000 people to the U.S. population last year, less than a quarter of what it did in 2015. And the first baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are about to turn 80, which means they’ll start to either pass away or sell their homes and downsize, which adds inventory to the market. U.S. builders have treated these demographic shifts differently than Japanese builders did, McGill said in an interview. Even before Japan’s population leveled off and then started shrinking, developers there slowed the pace at which they were building housing. In Japan, new home building fell from 14 million between 1990 and 2000, to 11 million between 2000 and 2010 and declined further to 9.1 million between 2010 and 2020. While Japanese builders took population declines into account when planning, McGill says U.S. builders are ignoring it. “Everybody on the development side is looking backwards and saying, ‘Well, we’ve always had a million and a half housing starts a year, so we should get back to that,’ but they’re completely ignoring the fact that the demographic underpinning is different,” he says. “They’ve convinced themselves there’s a huge supply shortage.” Markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Cleveland have all posted below-average population growth in each of the last 11 years, he says, suggesting that demand could taper even more in those areas. Nationwide, the pace of household formation has long been slowing, a reflection of the slowing birth rate, aging population, and later age at which people marry and have children. (Household formation measures both when people join together and live in a home, and when people die or move out of a home.) While there were13.7 million new households formed between 1990 and 2000, that number fell to 9.5 million between 2010 and 2020. A decline in house prices McGill says housing prices could fall as soon as 2023, because, he says, builders have been overbuilding based on U.S. demographics. “Our research is saying there’s something significantly negative coming,” he says. Of course, changes in demand are all a matter of public policy. The Federal Reserve increased interest rates, which slowed demand. And the U.S. stopped welcoming as many immigrants beginning in 2016, which also tampered demand. This could change, if Congress passes a change to immigration laws, but Zelman thinks it’s unlikely. The percentage of Democrats (83%) and Republicans (38%) who agree that immigrants strengthen the country, according to the Pew Research Center, is at its greatest partisan gap since at least 1944. McGill says that anyone who wants home values to rise rather than fall should support immigration. “If you want your economy to grow, you need population growth. It’s that simple,” he said......»»

SpaceX may overtake payments firm Stripe, valued at $115 billion and currently the most valuable startup, Reuters reported. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.Ryan Lash / TED SpaceX could turn out to be the most valuable startup business in the US, Reuters reported. Elon Musk's company could overtake Stripe, which is currently the most valuable startup, per reports. It comes after reports said SpaceX planned to sell shares at $70, valuing it at $125 billion. SpaceX, Elon Musk's rocket manufacturer, could become the most valuable startup in the US, Reuters reported.It follows news that the California-headquartered company was planning to sell shares to employees at $70 a share, valuing the company at $125 billion, according to media reports on Tuesday.SpaceX was last valued in October at $100 billion, CNBC reported.With overall valuation jumping $25 billion between October and May, SpaceX would become the most valuable US startup, sources told Reuters.If it was valued at $125 billion, the aerospace company, founded in 2002, would leapfrog payments firm Stripe, which had a valuation of $115 billion in a secondary sale, according to Reuters and a Forbes in February.Despite this jump in valuation, SpaceX would remain behind TikTok parent Bytedance, the world's most valuable company, which is worth $140 billion, according to data from CB Insights.SpaceX would still be considered more valuable than Chinese e-commerce giant SHEIN at $100 billion, and Swedish fintech firm Klarna at $45.6 billion, CB Insights data showed. One source who requested to remain anonymous told Reuters that SpaceX hasn't issued any new shares in the secondary offering, but could do so later this year. Reuters reported that it was uncertain how many shares the company was offering and whether Musk was a seller.Musk owned nearly 44% of SpaceX as of August 2021, according to a Federal Communications Commission filing reported by tech blog WCCF Tech. The news comes as the billionaire is trying to buy Twitter.SpaceX didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.Musk's company has boomed over the past year, successfully launching and landing its Starship rocket last May, planning to build out its launch site in south Texas, and expanding the reach of its Starlink satellite internet network. Read the original article on Business Insider.....»»

Ark Invest boss Cathie Wood, a longtime cheerleader for and investor in Elon Musk's EV maker, tweeted the move is "not worthy of any other response." Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood.Photo by Marco Bello/Getty Images Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood said Tesla being booted out of the S&P 500 ESG is "ridiculous". Tesla was kicked out of the sustainably focused index even though it produces EVs and solar panels. Wood is a supporter of and investor in Tesla, and she has predicted it will rise to $4,600 within five years.  Stock picker Cathie Wood has made it very clear she's unhappy about Tesla's booting from the S&P 500 ESG Index on Wednesday. The ARK Invest CEO and Tesla bull tweeted her disdain on Thursday, saying: "Ridiculous. Not worthy of any other response."Tesla was kicked out of the sustainably focused stock-market index this week, even though it produces electric vehicles, solar panels and battery packs. The removal came as part of S&P Global's fourth annual rebalance of the index.Wood has been a longtime supporter of Tesla, which is Ark Invest's top position with a combined market value of about $762 million across all of its ETFs, according to data compiled by Cathie's Ark.The keenly followed stock picker said in April she expects Tesla's stock price to rise to $4,600 by 2026 if it succeeds in developing and rolling out self-driving robo taxis. But the stock has dropped almost 30% in the past month to close at $709.81 on Wednesday, as worries about the Federal Reserve's aggressive interest-rate hikes drag on tech stocks.Tesla stock was ineligible to be included in the large-cap ESG index because of its low S&P DJI ESG score — a measure of its ESG efforts — which had fallen to the bottom 25% of its industry peers, S&P Global said in a blog post. Many legacy automakers have stepped up their push into electric vehicles over the last year.Tesla CEO Elon Musk lashed out at the index provider over the move. "ESG is an outrageous scam! Shame on S&P Global," he said in a tweet.The EV maker's lack of a low-carbon strategy and codes of conduct are seen as factor in its removal from the sustainability index. The company's exposure to risks from its handling of autopilot deaths and injuries, as well as claims of racial discrimination and poor factory working conditions, also played a part.Wood's championing of Tesla has led her to slam legacy automakers that have tried to venture into the electric-vehicle space — and she used the term "ridiculous" to do so.When stock in Ford and General Motors surged earlier this year, after they said they would step up development and production of electric vehicles, she said: "They soared on those electric vehicle announcements, this about that, that's ridiculous."The Ark CEO has since warmed to GM, and bought her first stake in the Tesla rival earlier in May.Read more: 'We're in the early phases of the deepest bear market of my life': A 37-year market vet warns stocks could fall 50-80% — and shares the strategies he's used to beat 91% of his peers this yearRead the original article on Business Insider.....»»