TALKING POINTS
September 30, 2024
Amid ongoing competition with the United States, China experienced a major setback earlier this year when its secret nuclear submarine sank immediately after being launched.
Of the 78,832 new passenger cars sold in Norway so far this year, 68,435 were electric, and last month 94% of new cars registered were electric vehicles. Norway has numerous incentives in favor of EVs, including a higher tax on internal combustion vehicles as well as lower parking fees for EVs.
Traffic stops are the most common way Americans encounter police officers, with nearly 50,000 motorists being pulled over every day.
Michelangelo's sculpture of the Pieta (1498-99) in St. Peter’s Basilica is one of his most exquisite creations and the only work of art he ever signed.
Ford has filed a patent to collect information from motorists and target them with ads as they drive. The data would include the vehicle’s destination and route and conversations between human occupants, all of which would help determine the ads shown on the in-car screens.
Seniors are frequent victims of financial fraud, and for every one reported case of elder abuse, 24 others go unreported. According to a study cited by the National Center on Elder Abuse, The study pegs the annual losses from elder financial abuse at $28.3 billion.
Cam McCormick, the tight end on the University of Miami’s football team, is a 26-year-old ninth-year senior who, due to an injury-plagued career, is still playing college football despite entering college in 2016.
The Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2024
September 23, 2024
Venezuelan strongman President Nicolás Maduro-keen to distract Venezuelans from his rigging of July elections, ongoing crackdown, and the nation’s economic collapse-decreed that Christmas will start Oct 1 this year “in peace, joy, and security!”
Global News, September 4, 2024
An index of Rolex Watch Prices is at its lowest level since November 2020, down 30% from the peak in March 2022.
The Week in Charts, September 18, 2024
Due to their perceived return on investment, 35% of the more than 11,000 college graduates surveyed by the Federal Reserve in 2023 said they wished they had chosen a different area of study.
Morning Brew, September 15, 2024
A stunning 33% of voters believe we’re in a recession.
The typical household of four throws out about $1,800 worth of food annually. Up to 40% of the food that’s produced never makes it to our mouths, and all this waste is enough to fill the highest skyscraper in Chicago 44 times a year.
A South Carolina mom is still in disbelief after giving birth to her fourth child. All four girls, born exactly three years apart, were born on August 25th.
“There’s an old saying in Arkansas that you don’t learn nothing the second time you get kicked in the head by a mule.”
Rep. Steve Womack
September 16, 2024
U.S. Households now have 42% of their financial assets in stocks. With data going back to 1952, that’s the highest percentage on record.
The Wall Street Journal, September 3, 2024
In 2023, some 80% of consumers said they got interested in a product or service through an influencer’s post. Now, Artificial Intelligence influencers are appearing on the scene. Polling shows that Gen Z, the target demographic for influencer marketing, doesn’t care if the influencers are real or fake.
The 2023 national median cost of a home health aide hired through an agency was $33 an hour, up from $20 an hour in 2015. Those needing round-the-clock in-home care can expect a median cost of about $290,000, more than double the annual median cost of a private room in a nursing home and four times the cost of a private room in an assisted living facility.
The Wall Street Journal, September 4, 2024
A U.S. storage company calculated pi to 105 trillion decimal places using supercomputers. The calculations took 75 days to complete and used up 1 million gigabytes of data. NASA scientists only need to know the first 15 decimal places of pi to understand most of the universe.
The average American now eats about 42 pounds of cheese a year, more than all the butter, ice cream, and yogurt combined.
Your parents were right—you can lose your job over what you post online. Due to a loss of confidence, a Navy commander was relieved of his duties after a photo surfaced of him using a rifle with the scope mounted backward.
Morning Brew, September 8, 2024
“When the enemy is making a false movement, we must take good care not to interrupt him.”
Napolean
September 9, 2024
The stock market often falls in the two months leading up to the election. In all years going back to 1944, September is well known for its seasonal weakness, seeing an average fall of 0.78% versus an average gain of 0.72% for all months. However, presidential election years have seen October join September and February as down months.
MarketWatch, September 5, 2024
“A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in.”
H.L. Mencken
The Fed’s balance sheet is over 20% below its peak from April 2022. That’s the largest drawdown on record.
The Week in Charts, September 3, 2024
Americans spent $14 billion on sports wagering in January of 2024, up from $1.1 billion in January 2019. An estimated 60% of American adults say they gambled within the past year.
Morning Brew, August 18, 2024 & NerdWallet, February 6, 2024
A new study from Charles Schwab found that, on average, Americans consider themselves wealthy at $2.5 million, up from $2.2 million two years ago. Americans reported needing an average net worth of $778,000 to feel “financially comfortable,” down from $1 million last year.
Yahoo!finance, August 21, 2024
The American one-cent piece is the single most-produced coin in history. A conservative estimate holds that there are 240 billion pennies lying around the United States—about 724 for every man, woman, and child residing there, and enough to hand two pennies to every bewildered human born since the dawn of man.
The New York Times, September 1, 2024
An Australian surgeon let his 13-year-old daughter drill a hole in a patient’s skull during emergency surgery. While the operation was a success, the unnamed victim’s lawyer called the situation “simply undignified.”
The Daily Mail, August 27, 2024
September 2, 2024
Work is most fulfilling when you’re at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you’re doing.”
Alain de Botton
The S&P 500 is up 18.1% in the first 163 trading days of 2024, the 18th best start of a year going back to 1928 and the 2nd best start to a presidential election year ever.
The Week in Charts, August 27, 2024
A recent report from S&P Global predicts that the amount of copper we’ll need over the next 25 years will be more than the human race consumed in its entire history.
A new study found that, on average, Americans consider themselves wealthy at $2.5 million, up from $2.2 million two years ago. Americans also believed they would need $1.46 million saved for retirement, up 53% compared to the $951,000 cited in 2020.
Charles Schwab, August 21, 2024
Despite 62% of workers saying that a job offering paid time off for vacations was “extremely important” to them, just 48% of U.S. workers took all the paid time off offered.
Danny Jansen began the major league baseball season with the Toronto Blue Jays, whose June 26 matchup with the Boston Red Sox was suspended during the second inning by rain while Jansen was at bat. When the game resumed last week, Jansen had been traded to the Red Sox, making him the first person in baseball history to play for each of the two teams during a single game.
Major League Baseball, August 26, 2024
Wildlife officials in Missouri gave an update on the condition of a bald eagle recently rescued for rehabilitation. The bird was not, in fact, injured but merely “engrossed with a raccoon- in other words, too fat to fly.”
August 26, 2024
For the first time in history, a standard 400 troy ounce gold bar is worth more than $1 million.
China lost a record $15 billion of foreign investment in the last quarter of this year. If the decline continues through 2024, it will be the country’s first annual net outflow of cash since at least 1990.
“Wars are not won by fighting battles; wars are won by choosing battles.”
George Patton
Last year, 4,094 girls played on high school tackle football teams, while another 42,955 girls played flag football. Flag football is seeing some real growth, more than doubling in a single season, with 20,875 girls playing in the 2023 season.
Rachel Bachman, The Wall Street Journal, August 21, 2024
Department-store sales peaked in 1999 at $96.65 billion and have since declined 69% to $29.94 billion in 2023.
The Week in Charts, August 19, 2024
Since wagering on your phone was legalized in most states in the past six years, a household’s net investment drops by $2 for every dollar put toward a sports bet.
“I’m not a prude about it, but to quite an extent, gambling is a tax on ignorance.”
August 19, 2024
Domestic oil and gas producers set another new record in oil production during the week ending August 4, 2024. U.S. producers pumped out an amazing 13.4 million barrels a day, the highest level of oil ever produced by any nation on earth.
In the early 1950s, the national average for the cost of gasoline remained steady at $0.27 per gallon, while the average household income at the time was $3,300 per year. Gasoline in 1950, adjusted for inflation, equates to about $3.52 a gallon in today’s dollars. Income in 1950, adjusted for inflation, would be the equivalent of about $42,892. However, the median household income today is $74,580.
Historyfacts.com and savings.org
September is normally terrible for the stock market in the first three years of the presidential cycle. In September, the Dow averages a loss of 1.5%. But in the President’s fourth year, September produces an average gain of 0.2%.
“Volatility can prey on investors’ emotions, reducing the probability they’d do the right thing.”
Howard Marks
Over the last 30 years, the purchasing power of the U.S. consumer dollar has been cut in half due to inflation. At the same time, the S&P 500 has gained 960% (8% per year) after adjusting for inflation.
The Week in Charts, August 6, 2024
According to the AP’s college football Top 25 poll, the Georgia Bulldogs are ranked #1. Since 1950, only 11 teams that started the preseason as the #1 choice went on to win the national title.
August 12, 2024
In August of 1896 the Dow Jones Industrial Average, less than three months old, hit the lowest level ever recorded: 28.48, down 30.5% in just 10 weeks.
The Wall Street Journal, Markets AM, August 8, 2024
“Investors remember three things: How much did they invest, what was it worth at the high-water mark, and what’s it worth today.”
Mark ZInder
Jeremy Green Eche of Brooklyn, NY buys and saves domain names for hypothetical presidential tickets. Last Tuesday, Aug 6th, he sold HarrisWalz.com for $15,000 to an anonymous buyer who was unconnected to either campaign.
Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service on the day he was assassinated.
Recently the U.S. national debt surpassed $35 trillion for the first time in the nation’s history. It took 192 years, from 1789 to 1981, to accumulate the first trillion dollars of national debt.
National Review, July 29, 2024
At the end of the second quarter of this year, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway held $234.6 billion in short-term Treasury bills which is more bills than the U.S. Federal Reserve owns.
“A very rich person should leave kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.”
Warren Buffett
August 5, 2024
On July 16, the Russell 2000 closed 4.42 standard deviations above its 50-day moving average. This was true not only for the Russell but for all major U.S. indices (S&P 500, DJIA, Nasdaq, and Russell 2000), it is the most overbought reading in history.
“Good ideas, carried to wretched excess, become bad ideas.”
Charlie Munger
In the second quarter of the year, Alphabet made $1.023 billion in net interest income alone, income made just by having a large pile of money in interest-bearing accounts. This is more than the actual profits of 397 companies in the S&P 500.
Workers at companies with 401(k) plans that automatically enroll their employees participated at a rate of 94% in 2023, compared to 67% at places where sign-up is voluntary.
"To buy when others are despondently selling and to sell when others are greedily buying requires the greatest fortitude and pays the greatest reward."
Sir John Templeton
When the Carter Center began leading the international campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease in 1986, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases in at least 21 countries in Africa and Asia. During the first three months of 2024, not a single case was detected worldwide. If this continues, we could soon achieve the global eradication of the third disease in history.
The Carter Center, April 28, 2024
If you started with $10,000 in 1961 and invested in the S&P 500 only when a Republican was in the White House, your investment would have grown to $102,000 in 2023. If you did the same but with a Democrat in the White House, that investment would have grown to $500,000. But none of that compares with the $5.1 million you would’ve had if you stayed invested the whole time.
July 29, 2024
At the end of the first quarter of 2024, Americans were holding a record $2.4 trillion worth of U.S. Treasurys.
MarketWatch, July 17, 2024
U.S. stocks have outperformed international stocks for 16 years running and by a huge margin. The result: we are now 3 standard deviations above the mean in terms of historical U.S. outperformance, a record high.
Charlie Bilello, June 23, 2024
Cash transaction fees are becoming increasingly common. In some places, it can cost an extra $1 to $6 not to use a credit or debit card.
The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2024
“He who sells anything in the agora shall not ask two prices for that which he sells, but he shall ask one.”
Plato
America throws out more than 100 billion pounds – or 40% of its food each year.
According to Simon Winchester, a linguist for the Oxford Dictionary, the English word “run” is the most complex word, with 645 definitions.
“It’s obvious that women are smarter than men. Think about it- diamonds are a girl’s best friend; a man’s best friend is a dog.”
Joan Rivers
July 22, 2024
The first 15 days of July of this year marked the best two-week stretch for the S&P 500 since 1928.
Growth stocks' outperformance versus Value is now at its highest level since 2000. What happened in the seven years following July 2000? Reversion to the mean. Growth stocks declined 27%, while Value stocks gained 84%.
Charlie Bilello, June 18, 2024
“Buying based purely on their past performance is one of the stupidest things an investor can do.”
Jack Bogle
In South Korea, an overworked “administrative officer robot” threw itself down a flight of stairs in an apparent suicide. The Gumi City Council announced the robot was found unresponsive, and witnesses say that before its fatal plunge, the robot was “circling in one spot as if something was there.”
The price of postage stamps went up for the second time this year and for the fifth time in 24 months. The 5-cent increase for First Class stamps ties the record for the biggest hike ever. However, adjusting for inflation, the price of a stamp has held fairly steady for the past 139 years.
Two-thirds of the world’s population now live in countries where the birth rates have dropped below 2.1 babies per woman, which is the number needed to keep the population constant. Researchers now expect the global population to peak at about 9.5 billion people in 2061 and then start falling. That would be the first such global population decline since the Black Death in the Middle Ages.
The Week
“Vodka is our enemy, so we’ll utterly consume it.”
Russian Proverb
July 15, 2024
A decade ago, the S&P 500 was less than half of what it is today. Of the 10 most valuable companies in the world, only three of them—Apple, Microsoft, and Google—were in tech. Today, the situation is reversed; only three of the 10 most valuable companies in the world aren’t tech companies.
The Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2024
In 2023, America’s millionaire population grew by roughly 500,000, or 7.3%, to 7.43 million people. The number of Americans worth $30 million or more grew 7.5% to 90,700 while their fortunes surged to $7.4 trillion.
“If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.”
Steven Wright
The U.S. office sector set a record 20.1% vacancy rate in the second quarter of this year, eclipsing 20% for the first time in history.
An entirely underwater 10,000-square-foot lot in the San Francisco Bay area is on the market for $400,000. Not realizing it was underwater, it was first purchased in March of 2023, sight unseen, for about $300,000 below asking. It has been on the market for over 300 days.
“Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.”
Mark Twain
A school board in Florida has banned from school libraries a book about school boards banning books from school libraries. The 2017 novel is about a fourth-grader who sets up a secret library of banned books. The book includes no sexual content, but as one board member said, “The title itself and the theme challenges our authority.”
July 8, 2024
Recent estimates show that Bill Gates owns around 270,000 acres of farmland in the United States or roughly 1 out of every 4000 acres of all U.S. farmland.
About half of the population aged 65 or older live in households that receive at least 50% of their family income from Social Security benefits.
“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”
Epictetus
This year, solar panels will provide the world with about 6% of its electricity—which is almost three times as much electrical energy as America consumed in 1954.
Chipotle executed a 50-1 stock split last week, bringing its share price from roughly $3,200 to $63. The fast-food chain priced its shares at $22 when it debuted in 2006!
The Rubik’s cube has 26 pieces that can be twisted into 43,252,003,274,856,000 possible positions, and every one of them can be solved in 20 moves or fewer.
Art of Problem Solving
“Technically, according to science, alcohol IS a solution.”
Anonymous
July 1, 2024
“We must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
Benjamin Franklin
Since 1928, in election years, the S&P 500 has risen 83% of the time. When a Democrat was in office, and a new Democrat was elected, the total return for the year averaged 11.0%. When a Democrat was in office, and a Republican was elected, the total return for the year averaged 12.9%.
“The British ministry can read that name without spectacles; let them double their reward.”
John Hancock
Violent crime dropped 15.2% nationwide in the first three months of the year compared with the same period in 2023, with murders and rapes both falling about 26%. Murders plummeted by more than 40% in cities such as New Orleans, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Boston; crime analysts say if such figures hold steady, we may see the largest one-year decline in murders in U.S. history.
“Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
John Adams
Over 2,000 years old wine was discovered in an urn in Spain and has been deemed the oldest wine to have ever been found in liquid form. The wine was described as “full-bodied” because it also contained the cremated bones of a Roman man.
In 1958, for a school project, 17-year-old Robert Heft designed a new version of the American flag, which consisted of 13 stripes and 50 stars – a familiar and iconic design that has been used to represent the American flag ever since. He received a B-.
Star Spangled Flags
June 24, 2024
Forty-nine companies have made the Fortune 500 list every year since its first edition in 1955. Exxon Mobile is the only Class of 1955 member still in the top 10 today.
According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, $2 trillion worth of counterfeit products are sold globally each year, which is roughly equivalent to Canada's GDP.
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
Winston Churchill
In 1790, Benjamin Franklin bequeathed 1,000 pounds sterling (roughly $4,000 at the time) to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia but requested that 25% not be touched until the 200th anniversary of his death. By 1994, these trust funds were worth some $6.5 million.
Before they retired, people’s top retirement plans included traveling (79%) and exercising (71%). But once they’ve retired, their top activity
was actually watching TV (83%).
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2022, the average person 65 years and older spent $4818 a month.
On June 8th at 11:00 pm, a 19-year-old woman was walking along the road in Laredo, Texas, when she got hit by a police car. The woman was taken to the hospital and was then issued a citation for jaywalking.
June 17, 2024
Since the bull market kicked off in October 2022, the DOW has surged 48% in 19 months. Overall, bull market statistics since 1900 show the DJIA has a median gain of 97% over roughly two years. In the post-WWII era, the median was 100%, but over almost four years.
Forbes March 21, 2024 and TKer, June 2, 2024
For the first time in history, chip stocks have taken the lead in the S&P 500, surpassing even the software sector in terms of weighting.
Nvidia’s market cap is now over $1 trillion higher than all of the companies in the S&P 500 Energy sector…combined.
The International Energy Agency forecasts that by 2026, data centers globally will use an amount of energy per year equal to Japan’s electricity consumption.
In 1916, Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress, roughly four years before women had the right to vote.
NationalConstitutionCenter, April 2, 2024
The University of Main has developed the world’s largest and most powerful 3D printer. It can build a small house in 80 hours.
Interesting Engineering, May 9, 2024
Speaking to Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger said, “If people weren’t so often wrong, we wouldn’t be so rich.”
June 10, 2024
Since 1952, the S&P 500 alone has generated an average return of 7% during presidential election years. If you limit that to presidential election years in which the incumbent president is running for reelection, the average jumps to 12.2%.
Since the bull market kicked off in October 2022, the S&P 500 has surged 48% in just 19 months. Since 1957, the average S&P 500 bull market has lasted 59.2 months and produced an average cumulative gain of 169.3% (annualized 28.7%).
MoneyShow, June 5, 2024, & Forbes, August 21, 2023
A Harris poll last month showed that 56% of Americans think we’re in a recession.
“Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.”
Napolean
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is one of the world’s largest holders of Treasury Bills, which means Warren Buffet now owns 3% of the entire T-bill market.
Millionaires and billionaires in the U.S. are underpaying their taxes by more than $150 billion a year. Audits of taxpayers making more than $1 million a year fell by more than 80% over the past decade due to IRS budget cuts, while the number of taxpayers in that bracket jumped 50%.
Housekeepers in Palm Beach and South Florida are cleaning up, with salaries often topping $150,000 and bidding wars between mansion owners becoming common.
June 3, 2024
Last year, investors in U.S. bonds received some $900 billion in interest, with Individual investors expected to pocket this $327 billion. In March alone, the Treasury Department paid out about $89 billion in interest to debt holders, or roughly $2 million a minute.
A recent analysis considered how a moderate-risk portfolio with 60% stocks and 40% bonds fared across all presidential election years since 1928. It turns out there were only four years with negative returns: 1932 (-1.4%), 1940 (-4.7%), 2000 (-0.8%), and 2008 (-20.1%). Unsurprisingly, the four presidential election years with negative returns occurred during seismic events: the Great Depression, World War II, the tech bubble, and the Great Recession.
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”.
Ernest Benn
There are now 12,597 satellites in Earth’s orbit. A record 2,877 satellites were launched into orbit last year alone.
In the United States last year, only 490 newborn babies were named ‘Alexa,’ plummeting from more than 6,000 in 2015.
Scientists have observed a rare evolutionary event in which two lifeforms merge into one, a process called primary endosymbiosis. To give some context, the last time that happened, Earth got plants.
“Two possibilities exist; either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
Arthur Clark
May 27, 2024
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.”
Patrick Henry
As of May 22, just nine days accounted for all of the 2024 stock market’s gains.
Morningstar, May 22, 2024
About $38 billion in loans for U.S. office buildings are facing default or foreclosure, the highest number since 2012. Last year, only 35% of office building loans were repaid when they came due.
The Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2024
“Why do they call them ‘buildings’ after they’ve finished building them? Shouldn’t they be called ‘builts.’”
Gallagher
The lawyers who persuaded a Delaware court to nullify Elon Musk’s $55.8 billion Tesla compensation package are seeking $5.6 billion in fees.
A Seattle Mariners baseball fan caught two consecutive foul balls at a recently played game. According to MLB Statcast, the probability of that happening is 0.0001%. Click on the link below to read the story and watch the replay.
“Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.”
Colonel David Hackworth
May 20, 2024
In 1995, UnitedHealth Group ranked 303rd on Fortune’s list of America’s largest companies. Propelled by a string of acquisitions, it climbed to 40th in 2005, sixth in 2016, and fifth in 2023. Its revenue in 2023 was $271.6 billion, putting it behind Apple and ahead of Alphabet and Microsoft.
The Washington Post, April 30, 2024
Research has shown that you can fit about 10 people into a square meter, crowded elevator-style. Los Angeles is about 1.2 billion square meters, which means you could easily fit the world’s population of 7.8 billion people inside the city of LA.
Interesting Facts, May 6, 2024
Of the top 100 college athletes ranked by name-and-image licensing deals, 52 are women. LSU gymnast Olivia Dunn is the highest-paid woman, with $3.7 million in annual deals. Iowa’s Caitlin Clark’s deals with brands such as Gatorade, State Farm, and Nike total $3.1 million.
“Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist the parachute.”
George Bernard Shaw
Beginning in 2014, NFL players have worn a computer chip in their shoulder pads. Ten times every second, the chip records the player's location, direction, velocity, and acceleration. Since 2017, a similar chip has been in the ball, and all of the data have been made available to all of the teams since 2018.
In 2022, the world’s airline companies mishandled an average of 7.6 pieces of baggage per 1,000 passengers. However, perfection is indeed possible, as seen by Japan’s Kansai Airport, which has not lost a single item of baggage in 30 years since it opened in September 1994.
“Just because they say it is impossible doesn’t mean you can’t do it.”
Roger Banister
May 13, 2024
Novo Nordisk’s development of Semaglutide, the key ingredient in diabetes and obesity drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, has made it Europe’s most valuable company. Its market capitalization of more than $570 billion is bigger than the annual economic output of its home country, Denmark.
A single half-inch uranium pellet produces roughly the same amount of energy as 149 gallons of oil, 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, or 1 ton of coal.
“Technology is anything that was invented after you were born; everything else is just stuff
Alan Key
According to IMF projections, the U.S. will account for 26.3% of global GDP in 2024, the highest level in almost two decades.
The Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2024
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Thomas Jefferson
New York City boasts nearly 350,000 millionaires, the highest number worldwide. This wealth concentration means roughly one in every 24 New Yorkers possesses a net worth of at least one million dollars.
“Idealism is fine. But, as one approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.”
William F. Buckley
May 6, 2024
Since the late 1990s, the number of US publicly traded companies has plunged from just over eight thousand to about 4.6K in 2022. So where have the missing companies gone? A 2023 paper suggests a fairly straightforward answer: the Magnificent Seven ate them. Or at least a lot of them. Data shows that Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and Nvidia have together acquired an eye-watering 875 companies.
Antarctica is home to 138 volcanoes, although only two are active. Mount Erebus, one of the two and the planet’s southernmost active volcano, spews about 80 grams of gold dust into the air every day.
New data by the CDC outlined another drop in US births. The total fertility rate fell from 1.66 births per woman in 2022 to 1.62 last year, the lowest rate recorded since tracking began in the 1930s.
The Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2024
“Checking luggage is like how I imagine childbirth to be. You do it, it sucks, it takes forever to come out, you forget, you do it again.”
Olivia Wilde
There are now 550 cities across the US where the typical home costs $1 million or more.
Just 46% of people expect to be working past age 62, a record low, while 31% think they’ll be working past age 67.
“My Mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, ‘Mom, they weren’t trying to teach you how to swim!’”
Paula Poundstone
April 29, 2024
U.S. household net worth increased $11.4 trillion in 2023, hitting a record high of $156.2 trillion. The full value of all stocks owned by Americans rose to $47.5 trillion, climbing by $7.8 trillion in 2023.
Markets Insider, March 8, 2024
In 2023, the U.S. produced the equivalent of 12.9 million barrels of crude oil and condensate per day, 28% more than the world’s previous top producer, Russia, and 33% more than even the oil-rich Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Amazon’s massive robotic workforce expansion now employs over 750,000 robots at its facilities across the globe.
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
Isaac Asimov
Cleopatra lived closer to the IPhone’s debut than she did to the building of the Pyramids of Giza.
Interesting Facts, April 22, 2024
A recent study published in the journal Science found that 45% of China's urban land was sinking faster than 3 millimeters per year, with 16% at more than 10 mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables but also the sheer weight of the buildings.
The imperial system is a funny thing. So funny that there is actually a unit of measurement for wine casks called a “butt.” That means if you fill the barrel up, you technically have a buttload of wine.
April 22, 2024
In the 14 quarters since the brief 2020 recession ended, U.S. GDP has soared by $8 trillion, or 40%. By contrast, in the 14 quarters after the 2009 recession ended, GDP rose by a relatively measly $2 trillion, or 14%.
A recent survey by Tech.com of 1,000 US-based business leaders found that companies with experience using AI were more than twice as likely to be open to a four-day workweek than those who didn’t.
Nearly three decades ago, the day OJ Simpson’s verdict was announced, AT&T experienced a few of the strangest minutes in its history. For five minutes during the decision, long-distance calls fell 58% below normal.
The S&P 500’s dividend yield has moved down to 1.35%, the lowest since Q4 2021. The all-time low was 1.12% in Q1 2000.
The Week in Charts, April 9, 2024
One in seven health dollars is now spent on diabetes treatment, amounting to $800 million every day.
Americans spent more than $100 billion on lotteries in 45 states and the District of Columbia last year—a haul that, combined, would make U.S. lotteries the country’s ninth-most profitable company.
“Say it with roses, and say it with mink- but never, ever, say it in ink.”
Jimmy Durante
April 15, 2024
In 2021, the top 1% of income earners in America made 26% of the country’s total income and paid 46% of total income taxes.
Charlie Bilello
For all the complaints about American tax rates, the U.S. ranks 32nd out of 38 nations in revenue as a percentage of GDP. The U.S. is so much below the average ratio that if its ratio were simply average, it would bring in $26 trillion more over 10 years.
“The earth laughs in flowers.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
An estimated $58 million in loose change is left behind on airplanes each year.
Interesting Facts, April 14, 2023
The U.S. residential real estate market is worth a staggering $47.5 trillion.
Business Insider, February 28, 2024
Two revolutionary companies went public twenty years ago. Google, which has returned +6,080%, and Domino’s Pizza, which has returned +8,200%.
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
Mark Twain
April 8, 2024
Over the last 30 years, the purchasing power of the U.S. consumer dollar has been cut in half due to inflation. At the same time, the S&P 500 has gained 840% after adjusting for inflation.
Charlie Bilello, March 20, 2024
Since 1950, there have been 30 five-month streaks in the S&P 500, including the most recent one. Two of those five-month win streaks, the ones that ended in July of 2023 and March of 2024, are still too recent to collect 12-month performance data. In all but two of the prior 28 cases, the S&P 500 was higher 12 months later, with an average gain of 12.5% and a 93% win rate.
Workers are seeing a pay bump of 29% when switching from fully remote to fully in-office jobs.
“The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you’ll grow out of it.”
Doris Day
The Dow has done pretty well in total eclipse years. The DJIA has posted a positive year in 10 or 13 total eclipse years on the list from 1900 through 2017. The most breathtaking year for gains in that group was 1954 when the DOW rose 44%. Three other years had gains of 25% or higher: Up 30% in 1925, up 26.6% in 1945, and up 25.1% in 2017.
Detroit Free Press, April 3, 2024
Nearly half of Fortune 500 companies, including Apple, Amazon, AT&T, Google, Pfizer, and Capital One, were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants.
“Truth Social stock tanked so fast, they’re changing the name to Twitter.”
Jimmy Fallon
April 1, 2024
"Isn't it appropriate that the month income taxes are due, begins with April Fool’s Day and ends with cries of 'May Day!'?"
Rob Knauerhase
Millionaires and billionaires in the U.S. underpay their taxes by more than $150 billion annually. Audits of taxpayers making more than $1 million a year fell by more than 80% over the past decade due to IRS budget cuts, while the number of taxpayers in that bracket jumped 50%.
New data from 13,000 agencies covering all of 2023 have shown that there was a 13% decline in murder last year (the largest one-year decline ever recorded), a 6% decline in violent crime, likely the lowest rate since the 1960s, and a 4% decline in property crime. Fox News has been strangely silent.
McKenzie Scott has now given away $16.5 billion from the fortune she came into after divorcing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
In a drastic attempt to protect their beachfront homes, residents in Salisbury, Massachusetts, invested $500,000 in a sand dune to defend against encroaching tides. The dune lasted just 72 hours before it was completely washed away.
The Daily Beast, March 11, 2024
Thanks to decades of improving aviation safety, the chances of dying in a plane crash went from 1-in-350,000 between 1968 and 1977 to 1-in-13.4 million between 2018 and 2022. Based on current safety levels, it would take an average of 103,239 years of daily travel for a person to experience a fatal accident.
"The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year."
Mark Twain
March 25, 2024
Founders Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne created Apple Computer on April 1, 1976. Soon after the company was formed, Wayne sold his 10% stake in the newly formed Apple back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. On March 15th of this year, that 10% stake would have been valued at $267 billion.
Dave Manuel and Macrotrends
Older office buildings still need to drop about 50% in price to make turning former workplaces into homes feasible for developers. Converting a nonviable office that is priced at the average current level will result in a $164 loss per square foot to around $154 per square foot, for the cost to be fully covered by the stream of discounted future revenues.
Morningstar, February 27, 2024
Shelter is the primary reason why inflation remains elevated. It is the largest single component of CPI, representing over one-third of the index. Shelter CPI is a lagging indicator, only now reflecting the surge in housing inflation from 2021-2022, but with each passing month, we should be getting closer to the end of that lag. If we remove shelter from the index, CPI has increased only 1.5% over the last year which would be the 8th consecutive month below 2%.
St. Louis Fed, March 7, 2024 and Bilello.Blog, February 19, 2024
Nearly 1 in 5 Americans rent storage space away from home. In the past five years, self-storage companies have added more than 265 million square feet of rentable space around the country.
MarketPlace, February 16, 2024
“In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
All told, 74 percent of teens reported feeling “happy” when they do not have their smartphone with them, 72 percent said they feel peaceful, while 44 percent said anxious, 40 percent said upset and 39 percent said lonely. While phones do have some uses — teens said smartphones made it easier to pursue hobbies and to be creative — more said that smartphones make it harder to learn good social skills than easier.
Monica Anderson, Michelle Faverio and Eugenie Park, Pew Research Center
“Nothing so undermines your financial judgment as the sight of your neighbor getting rich.”
J.P. Morgan
March 18, 2024
“The investor who says, ‘This time is different,’ when in fact it’s virtually a repeat of an earlier situation, has uttered among the four most costly words in the annals of investing.”
Sir John Templeton
The U.S. has been the best-performing of the major stock markets over the past 124 years. After inflation [but not including dividends], it has generated returns of 6.5%. Globally, stocks over 124 years have generated an inflation-adjusted return of 5.1%.
Morningstar, February 28, 2024
As of December 31, 2023, Berkshire Hathaway stock was up nearly 4,400,000% since Warren Buffett took control in 1965. That’s about 140 times the S&P 500’s 31,000% gain over the same period and represents a compounded gain of 19.8% a year versus the index’s 10.2% annual gain.
Business Insider, February 27, 2024
90% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the U.S.-Canada border, and around 60% of all Canadians live south of Seattle, Washington. All in all, 27 states in the U.S. are totally or partially north of Canada’s most southern point.
People pay about $273 a month for subscriptions, which is almost $200 more than they think they do.
The Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2024
Since 2000, the cost of televisions has fallen an astounding 98%.
“What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end.”
Warren Buffett
March 11, 2024
“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels.”
Bob Thaves
The S&P 500 has started the year positive in January and February 28 times since 1950. The benchmark average was then positive over the next 12 months in 26 of those instances. On average, when the first two months have been positive, the S&P 500 has delivered a return of 19.9% for the year.
As a rule, movies need to make at least 2.5 times their budget to run a profit. “Barbie" made back more than 14 times its $100 million budget. With the same budget, “Oppenheimer” made back more than nine times its investment.
At age 46, Tom Brady beat his 40-yard dash time from the combined NFL scouting reports from 24 years ago. At 22, Brady ran 40 yards in 5.28 seconds. This year, Brady had two stopwatches on him as he ran; one had him at 5.18 seconds, and the other was at 5.12 seconds.
“If someone tells you who they are, you should believe them.”
Maya Angelou
There are more barrels of whisky in Kentucky distilleries than there are residents in that state.
“I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.”
Zsa Zsa Gabor
March 4, 2024
Some bearish investors believe that U.S. stocks are in a bubble. Since 1974, the S&P 500 has risen 100% or more during the three years that preceded every bubble peak. Despite the wild ride that stocks have been in over the past three years, the S&P 500’s performance during this period is up 31%, which is only slightly better than the average three-year rolling return of 29%.
Yahoo!finance, February 27, 2024
Walgreens stock, which was recently kicked out of the DOW, lost 58% during its tenure in the index. Interestingly, the company it replaced (General Electric) gained 86% during the same time.
Bilello.BLOG, February 27, 2024
“There will always be bull markets followed by bear markets followed by bull markets.”
Sir John Templeton
Microchip giant Nvidia has been the banner name that has returned 1,904% over the past five years. Over the same period, e.l.f. Beauty has returned 2,491%, Super Micro Computer returned 4,175%, and energy drink maker Celsius Holdings did even better, posting a half-decade return north of 5,300%.
The $160 trillion market for U.S.-dollar interest rate swaps — contractual bets on the direction of interest rates — is one of the largest markets in the world.
For every vehicle it sold in the 4th quarter of 2023, the EV automobile manufacturer Rivian lost $43,373.
The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2024
According to a Delta Dental survey, the tooth fairy’s going rate for a single lost tooth dropped to $5.84 in 2024 compared to $6.23 in 2023.
Axios, February 22, 2024
February 25, 2024
Adjusted for the cost of living, an ounce of gold has approximately the same purchasing power it had in ancient Rome 2,000 years ago.
The Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2024
In the past half-century, U.S. stocks turned $100 into $6,200 without dividends (ignoring costs and taxes), while with dividends, the same $100 investment would be worth roughly $25,000 today.
The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2024
For the first time on record, the United States has fewer than 2 million farms. All told, only 26,214 farms accounted for half of all sales, while 586,286 farms (31% of them) reported sales less than $2,500.
Numlock News, February 21, 2024
“Baseball is the only sport I know where the defense controls the ball.”
Ken Harrelson, Sports Illustrated, September 1976.
U.S. casinos won nearly $67 billion from gamblers last year- their biggest single-year haul ever. Slot machines brought in the most revenue, while sports betting saw the biggest increase.
The average slot machine player plays 16 games a minute, which is more than we blink.
When asked what he would do with his signing bonus, Philly’s relief pitcher Tug McGraw exclaimed, "Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women, and Irish Whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."
February 19, 2024
In remarks at a dinner honoring numerous Nobel Prize winners, President John F. Kennedy said, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
The American Presidency Project
The S&P 500 has doubled to 5,000 since September 2017, when it was trading at 2,500. Besides the milestone, an additional cool fact about “five thousand” is that it contains no letter in the alphabet more than once.
Morning Brew, February 11, 2024
Nvidia’s market cap is now over $200 billion higher than all the companies in the S&P 500 Energy sector…combined. Meanwhile, the total net income of the Energy sector is $147 billion vs $19 billion for Nvidia.
Bilello.blog, February 13, 2024
"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
Ronald Reagan
Super Bowl LVIII drew 123.7 million viewers- making it the most-watched program in television history.
The S&P 500 is up over 30% since the yield curve inverted back in October 2022.
“Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections or trying to anticipate them than has been lost in corrections themselves.”
Peter Lynch
February 12, 2024
In the Middle Ages, Valentine’s Day became associated with love and romance, a tradition that came from the common belief in France and England that birds started their mating season on February 14.
Good Housekeeping, December 27, 2023
“’Thou shalt not’” might reach the head, but it takes ‘Once upon a time’ to reach the heart.’”
Phillip Pullman
January 2024 saw the S&P 500 jump +1.6%. This is important because whenever stocks are positive in January, full-year returns offer market-beating returns of +15.7 vs. the S&P’s historical average of +10.35%.
Yahoo!finance. February 4, 2024
Nvidia is now worth as much as the entire Chinese stock market.
yahoo!finance, February 9, 2024
In 2023, there were no major fatal accidents involving large turbofan-powered commercial aircraft, making it the safest year in aviation history, quite literally proving the adage that “the news doesn’t report the planes that land.”
FutureCrunch, January 18, 2024
On Friday, Feb 2, 2024. Meta shares rose more than 20%, adding $205 billion to its market capitalization. To put that into perspective, the world’s 20 largest airlines are cumulatively valued at $210 billion.
Investopedia, February 2, 2024
“If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.”
Richard Branson
February 5, 2024
America now imports more goods from Mexico than from China, with Chinese imports down a staggering 21% from the prior year, and their imports are now just barely ahead of the $388 billion the United States imported from Canada.
According to the Federal Reserve, baby boomers hold a massive amount of wealth: The 55.8 million Americans over 65, about 17% of the population, hold $96.4 trillion, which is about half of America’s wealth
Business Insider, October 18, 2024
While the cost of living is hitting everyday costs hard, the price of plane tickets is at a 15-year low- in the United States, at least. The average airfare is nearly 25% less than it was pre-pandemic, and in fact, it hasn’t been this cheap since 2009.
“Headlines, in a way, are what mislead you because bad news is a headline, and gradual improvement is not.”
Bill Gates
The number of Americans aged 25-34 living at home has jumped 87% in the past two decades.
Despite what you’ve heard, the Supreme Court is NOT the "Highest Court in the Land.” Instead, that honor goes to the basketball court that sits on the fifth floor, one floor above the judicial seat of power. In the converted storage area, there’s a sign reminding players not to play while the court is in session – or they might disrupt the historic oral arguments being made one floor beneath them.
Atlas Obscura
“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
E. B. White
January 29, 2024
In 2023, Coinbase, Affirm, and Carvana shares rose by 491%, 508%, and 1,117%, respectively, making them the top 3 performers among companies worth more than $10 billion. However, by the same token, they ended 2023 down 60%, 71%, and 86% respectively from their highs of 2021.
The five richest men in America, saw their fortunes rise by 114% between March 2020 and November 2023. This elite group’s net worth rose from $405 billion to $869 billion, translating to roughly $14 million an hour.
When In-N-Out opened its first location in Idaho last month, so many
people lined up to order a burger that the estimated wait time was up to eight hours.
The Washington Post, December 14, 2024
In a new investigation, Consumer Reports and The Markup crowdsourced three years of archived Facebook data from 709 users of the social network and found that 186,892 different companies sent data to Facebook, with the average participant having 2,230 different companies share their data about them.
Consumer Reports and The MarkUp, January 17, 2024
Tight end Cam McCormick will play in a record ninth season of college football at the University of Miami after being sidelined numerous times with injuries. In just two more years, he’ll be up for tenure.
This coming April, two different broods of cicadas, Brood XIII and Brood XIX, which emerge every 17 and 13 years, will, for the first time since 1803, be emerging simultaneously. Approximately a trillion cicadas will appear in the 16 state areas that are directly affected.
Smithsonian Magazine, January 22, 2024
“Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.”
Warren Buffet
January 22, 2024
On Friday, January 5, 2024, the day a door plug flew off an Alaska Airlines plane in mid-flight – 120 Americans died in motor vehicle crashes. Roughly 136 died from opioids. Perhaps 150 died as hospital inpatients due to preventable medical errors. About 230 died of COVID-19, and zero died in aircraft accidents.
The number of real estate agents in America hit an all-time high last year, with almost three agents for every home on the market.
Business Insider, August 2, 2023
Unemployment has now been under 4% for almost two years- the longest streak of rock-bottom jobless rates since the Vietnam War.
The number of murders in U.S. cities fell by more than 12% in 2023- which would be the biggest national decline on record. The recent data also suggests that the violent crime rate in 2023 was near its lowest level in more than 50 years.
The New York Times, January 11, 2024
In the late 1970s, roughly 70% of U.S. imported oil came from OPEC. That was down to about 15% at the end of 2022.
Since Bill Gates stepped down from Microsoft’s CEO, the tech giant’s stock has, on average, gained 23.6% per year. If he had never sold any shares over these years, he would now be a trillionaire.
yahoo!finance, November 23, 2024
“The idea that money doesn’t buy happiness is a lie put about by the rich to stop the poor from killing them.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
January 15, 2024
It is estimated that U.S. consumers will return $173 billion in goods between Thanksgiving and the end of January.
Chain Store Age, January 2, 2024
When the S&P 500 rises in the first month of the year, its average return for the remainder is 9.2%, and its average return is positive 78% of the time. When it drops in January, the average return for the rest of the year falls to 2.1%, and the remaining months are positive 58% of the time.
The Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2024
“The secret to successful investing is relatively simple: Figure out the value of something and then pay a lot less.”
Joel Greenblatt
Only 26 congressional bills made it into law in 2023, making Congress the least productive in more than 90 years. The previous Congress, the 117th, passed 365 laws during the two-year term, the 116th passed 344, and the 115th passed 443.
The New York Times, December 19, 2023
The U.S. government spent more on health care in 2022 than six countries with universal health care combined.
Because guinea pigs are social creatures who become lonesome without a friend, it’s illegal to own just one of them in Switzerland. The law was introduced in 2008 as part of a legislative effort to grant social rights to pets. Should one guinea pig depart this mortal coil and leave its companion alone, Rent-A-Guinea-Pig service has emerged as a temporary solution. Goldfish are also prohibited from being kept alone, and cats must at least have access to a window where they can see their fellow felines prowling around.
Interesting Facts, January 2024
The inventor of the wind chill factor died this week. He was 86, but he felt more like he was 64.
Anonymous
January 8, 2024
It is estimated that U.S. consumers will return $173 billion in goods between Thanksgiving and the end of January.
Chain Store Age, January 2, 2024
When the S&P 500 rises in the first month of the year, its average return for the remainder is 9.2%, and its average return is positive 78% of the time. When it drops in January, the average return for the rest of the year falls to 2.1%, and the remaining months are positive 58% of the time.
The Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2024
“The secret to successful investing is relatively simple: Figure out the value of something and then pay a lot less.”
Joel Greenblatt
Only 26 congressional bills made it into law in 2023, making Congress the least productive in more than 90 years. The previous Congress, the 117th, passed 365 laws during the two-year term, the 116th passed 344, and the 115th passed 443.
The New York Times, December 19, 2023
The U.S. government spent more on health care in 2022 than six countries with universal health care combined.
Because guinea pigs are social creatures who become lonesome without a friend, it’s illegal to own just one of them in Switzerland. The law was introduced in 2008 as part of a legislative effort to grant social rights to pets. Should one guinea pig depart this mortal coil and leave its companion alone, Rent-A-Guinea-Pig service has emerged as a temporary solution. Goldfish are also prohibited from being kept alone, and cats must at least have access to a window where they can see their fellow felines prowling around.
Interesting Facts, January 2024
The inventor of the wind chill factor died this week. He was 86, but he felt more like he was 64.
Annonymous
January 1, 2024
Researchers suggest that only 9% of Americans who make New Year’s resolutions complete them. In fact, research goes on to show that 23% of people quit their resolution by the end of the first week, and 43% quit by the end of January.
Fisher.OSU.edu. February 2, 2023
“I drink to make other people more interesting.”
Ernest Hemingway
Beefeater Gin has quietly lowered the proof of its flagship gin in the U.S. from 44% to 40% ABV, the legal minimum for any spirit sold in the country. This would perhaps not be the biggest deal in the world, except for the fact that just three years earlier, Beefeater lowered the proof of its London Dry from 47% to 44% ABV.
“One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.”
James Thurber
The Magnificent Seven (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, and Meta) now have a higher weighting in the MSCI World Index than all of the stocks in the UK, China, France, and Japan combined.
The The Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2023
Humanity will install an astonishing 413 GW of solar this year, 58% more than in 2022, which itself marked an almost 42% increase from 2021. That means the world's solar capacity has doubled in the last 18 months and that solar is now the fastest-growing energy technology in history.
FutureCrunch, December 20, 2023
“‘Out with the old and in with the new’ is a fitting expression for a holiday that is based on vomiting.”
Andy Borowitz
December 25, 2023
The last day of the year will be 123123.
The Old Farmer's Almanac, December 24, 2023
Adjusted for inflation, households median net worth climbed 37% from 2019 to 2022, the largest increase in the survey’s history.
The Wall Street Journal, December 18, 2023
“Creditors have better memories than debtors.”
Benjamin Franklin
According to NASA, one light-year is about six trillion miles, and today, money market mutual funds alone hold nearly six trillion dollars in their portfolios.
CNBC, December 14, 2023 & NASA
“The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it’s their fault.”
Henry Kissinger
More than 3,200 private venture-backed U.S. startups that collectively raised $27.2 billion have gone out of business in 2023.
BusinessInsider, December 7, 2023
“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas. But if the white runs out, I’ll drink the red.”
Anonymous
December 18, 2023
There are roughly 3,000 Christmas tree farms in the United States, selling 12 million trees per year and another 3 million natural trees imported in addition to the 20 million artificial trees. The wholesale price of an imported tree, artificial or natural, was $22 last year, so given that the general price range for a tree was between $80 and $100 in 2022, that would indicate that your typical markup on a Christmas tree is something in the neighborhood of 400% to 500%.
Scientific America, December 11, 2023
The number of “mini-millionaires,” or U.S. households with a net worth between $1 million and $5 million, has risen 60% in the past 15 years to 12.7 million.
Amazon’s Web Service revenue over the last 12 months ($88 billion) was higher than the revenues of 461 companies in the S&P 500.
Charlie Bilello, November 11, 2023
"Christmas: the only time of year you can sit in front of a dead tree eating candy out of socks."
Unknown
The e-scooter company Bird, which became the fastest startup ever to land a $1 billion valuation, was delisted from the NYSE and is now worth $7 million. That’s less than a third of the $22 million its founder paid for a Miami mansion in 2021.
Morning Brew, December 10, 2023
Foreign Investment into China turned negative for the first time on record in the third quarter. A broad measure of Foreign Direct Investment showed an outflow of $11.8 billion in the third quarter of 2023, the first negative print since the agency began compiling the data in 1998.
Axios, November 7, 2023
“The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, DC. This wasn’t for any religious reasons. They couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin.”
Jay Leno
December 11, 2023
Around 15 years ago, real estate agents had 2.2 million vacant housing units available to show prospective buyers. That number has dwindled and now sits at just 732,000, despite the country having added 30 million people to its population.
The Atlantic, December 3, 2023
The ratio of job openings to unemployed workers fell to 1.3 in October, down from a pandemic-era high of 2.0 and near the pre-pandemic level of 1.2.
New billionaires today have made more of their fortunes from inheritance than entrepreneurship.
“The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.”
Henry Kissinger
100 years ago, everyone owned a horse, and only the rich had cars. Today, everyone has cars, and only the rich own horses.
Anonymous
From 2004 to 2021, the median annual price for assisted living increased 31% faster than inflation and is now roughly $54,000 per year.
McNights Senior Living, November 21, 2023
"Why is Christmas just like a day in the office? You do all the work, and the fat guy in the suit gets all the credit."
Anonymous
December 4, 2023
Since 1950, the S&P 500 has risen 70% of the time from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve, for an average gain of 1.7%.
In 1996, about 8,000 firms were listed in the U.S. stock market. Since then, the national economy has grown by nearly $20 trillion. The population has increased by 70 million people. And yet, today, the number of American public companies stands at fewer than 4,000.
The Atlantic, October 30, 2023
U.S. airlines lose 2 million suitcases a year.
The S&P 500 has gained 17% on average in the year after the last increase by the Federal Reserve. With the S&P mostly unchanged since the Fed’s last interest-rate hike in July, it suggests the index has a lot of making up to do.
The average consumer spends $219 on monthly subscriptions, but we are only aware of about 40% of that spending, and customers’ forgetfulness can boost companies’ revenues by up to 200%. Now, an app service will track and clean up your subscriptions for you and offer its own premium tiers…as a subscription, of course.
The world’s oldest bond turns 400 in January. Made from goatskin, the “perpetual” bond made out by the Dutch water authority to fund the repair of a dike on the Rhine River in 1624 still pays out an annual interest of roughly $17.48.
“The first rule of a happy life is low expectations. That’s the way I got married. My wife lowered her expectations.”
Charlie Munger
November 27, 2023
The Mayflower Society estimates that from the 102 passengers that traveled on the Mayflower, roughly 35 million people are descendants of the original passengers- 10 million of whom live in the United States.
Per a new analysis of census data from Glassdoor, Gen Z is expected to overtake baby boomers in the workforce by next year.
With an average age of 78, the Rolling Stones are hitting the road again in 2024 with a 16-city tour. It is being sponsored by AARP (seriously).
“One of the delights known to age, and beyond the grasp of youth, is that of ‘Not Going.’”
J.B. Priestly
Over the course of human history, around 200,000 tons of gold have been mined. Globally, the supply of recycled gold has increased by 10% per year, compared to the 3% growth from mining. About 280 grams of gold can be recovered from one ton of mobile phones. In terms of weight, that is 56 times as effective as gold mining.
NumlockNews, November 13, 2023
Walmart’s physical footprint is unmatched, with enough floor space in stores in the United States alone to accommodate some 12,500 football fields.
“What I don’t like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.”
Phyllis Diller
November 20, 2023
Nearly half of all banking profits last quarter came in from just four companies: JP Morgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America. The other 4400 banks in the U.S. had to fight for the leftovers.
Financial Times, November 11, 2023
Apple has repurchased over $500 billion in stock over the past ten years, which is greater than the market cap of 492 companies in the S&P 500.
Yahoo!Finance, August 11, 2023
A ticket to pass through the Panama Canal was sold at auction for a record $2.85 million last week. A normal booking fee costs $900,000, but the Panama Canal Authority has capped the number of daily ship crossings due to drought.
Black Friday: because only in America do people trample each other for sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have.
Anonymous
At full power, a wind turbine the size of the Haliade-X could cover a whole household’s daily electricity needs in under 7 seconds. A single rotation of the 260-meter offshore wind turbine can power an entire house for two days.
Home prices are showing signs of slowing, as they showed the weakest monthly gain since January, at 0.39%. Home prices have cooled in 49 of the 50 largest U.S. markets, with Cleveland being the sole exception.
Realtor.com, November 7, 2023
Note to all premature Christmas decorators. Calm down, Mary hasn’t even told Joseph she’s pregnant yet!
Anonymous
November 13, 2023
Just eight days account for all of the S&P 500’s 14% gain in 2023. The number of “up” days (113) for the index so far is just 11 more than the number of down days (102).
In the first week of November, U.S. crude oil production hit 13.2 million barrels per day, a new record.
Bracketing, when online shoppers order a size up and down from what they think will fit them and return the other two (or more), costs up to $20 per return—not including freight. When products are returned, they are no longer considered new and sold as used, “open box,” or “refurbished.” Many retailers throw away more than 25% of their returns.
Morning Brew, November 7, 2023
“Last year, I had a great joke about inflation. But it’s hardly worth it now.”
Comedian Amos Gill
The combined revenue of the four largest US companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google & Amazon) hit a record $1.45 trillion over the last 12 months. That’s larger than the GDP of all but 13 countries.
Charlie Bilello, November 5, 2023
More than 11% of the world’s billionaires- 242 out of 2,072, have held or have run for political office.
“It's hard to get really depressed until your dreams come true.”
Rick Rubin
November 6, 2023
Foreign aid is about 1% of the U.S. budget or roughly $60 billion. To put that in perspective, Americans forked over about $115 billion for beer last year, $30 billion on legal marijuana, and more than $220 billion over the past five years on legal sports betting.
The Atlantic, October 30, 2023
The average new mortgage payment is 52% higher than the average apartment rent.
Yahoo!finance, October 23, 2023
“Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf is a flower.”
Albert Camus
There will come a point in time when no job is needed. You can have a job if you want for personal satisfaction, but the AI will be able to do everything.”
Elon Musk, November 3, 2023
“I regard it as the major domestic challenge of the sixties, to maintain full employment at a time when automation, of course, is replacing men.”
President John F. Kennedy, 1962
AI requires intensive work in a data center. One report even showed that ChatGPT consumes half a liter of water for every 20 commands.
“I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.”
Dorothy Parker
October 30, 2023
Americans drink more coffee each day than any other beverage—including tap water.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, September 2023
On October 29, 1969, UCLA student Charley Kline attempted to transmit the text “login” to a computer at the Stanford Research Institute over the ARPANET, which was the precursor to the modern Internet. After the letters “l” and “o” were sent, the system crashed, making the first message ever sent on the internet “lo.” An hour later, recovering from the crash, the full text of “login” was successfully sent.
“Simplify, Simplify, Simplify. Our life is fretted away by detail.” These were the words of Henry David Thoreau, to which his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson responded, “Henry, I believe one simplify would have been enough.”
Henry David Thoreau
Since 1950, the best day of the entire year for stocks has been October 28th. The worst day for stocks since 1950? October 19th.
Yahoo!finance, October 28, 2023
“The definition of a bear market is when common stocks are returned to their rightful owners.”
Sir John Templeton
As foreign investors flee at a record pace, the Chinese stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen have erased all of their gains from the past 4½ years.
“War does not determine who is right, only who is left.”
Anonymous
October 23, 2023
Americans 65 and up accounted for 22% of spending last year, the highest share since records began in 1972.
The Wall Street Journal, October 8, 2023
In 2022, music streaming services accounted for 84% of recorded music revenues. With nearly a half-billion users around the world, Spotify’s success is heavily qualified; however, it has never posted a profit.
New York Magazine, October 20, 2023
The World Bank estimates that in 2023, 691 million people (or 8.6% of the global population) will be living in extreme poverty, which would represent the lowest proportion in human history.
FutureCrunch, October 12, 2023
"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."
Harry S Truman
Since 2021, Americans have lost $2.7 billion in scams from social media. More than half the money reported lost went to investment scammers.
The number of billionaires in the world has skyrocketed from fewer than 500 people in 2003 to more than 2,600 today.
CNBC, October 10, 2023
“Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.”
Winston Churchill
October 16, 2023
Surge pricing isn’t just for Ubers and Airfare anymore. The rise of algorithms and AI has introduced the concept across a growing number of businesses. For example, “Amazon changes the price of its products on average every 10 minutes,” and Walmart has begun installing “electronic shelf labels” that allow its brick-and-mortar store to “rapidly update prices.”
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that because of “junk fees,” consumers spend 50 million hours per year just trying to figure out the total price of live ticketing events and short-term rentals.
Individual taxpayers, businesses, and corporations collectively owed $688 billion in unpaid taxes for the returns due last year. According to the IRS, those are the projections about the gap between taxes owed and taxes actually paid.
After Artificial Intelligence concerns, Amazon announced it would restrict authors from self-publishing more than three books a day.
The Guardian, September 20, 2023
The average retiree watches 47 hours of television a week.
Edward Jones Age Wave Study, 2021, page 15
Despite rising interest rates, Americans spent 5.8% more in August than a year earlier. About 64% of households made at least one large purchase in the previous four months, the highest reading since 2015.
The Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2023
“Everybody is born 100% ego; after that, it’s just adjustment.”
Agnes Martin
October 9, 2023
According to data from the Federal Reserve, since 1962, the average daily 10-year Treasury yield was more than a point higher than now- 5.9%.
If, instead of purchasing the newest iPhone every time Apple launched one, you'd spend the same amount of money to invest in Apple stock, you would now own 910 shares, which would today be worth roughly $146,562.
Tech Crunch, September 15, 2023
United Airlines could save $80 million a year in fuel costs if the average passenger’s weight fell by 10 pounds.
“When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Sherlock Holmes
R5 Capital, a consumer research consulting firm, estimates that starting this month, around $7 billion to $8 billion per month will be reallocated to student loan payments.
The mere presence of a Cheesecake Factory is an indicator of a mall’s financial health. About 93% of loans backed by malls that have Cheesecake Factory restaurants are current on their payments, compared to about 72% of those without one.
“Kevin McCarthy was ousted as House Speaker after just nine months. Even Aaron Rodgers is like, ‘Damn, that was fast.’”
Jimmy Fallon
October 2, 2023
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.”
Winston Churchill
The missiles that comprise the land component of America’s nuclear triad are scattered across thousands of square miles of prairie and farmland, mainly in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. About 150 of the roughly 400 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles are currently on alert, and it would take an ICBM about 25 minutes to reach Moscow.
“The history of civilization is largely the history of weapons.”
George Orwell
A Redfin survey found that return-to-office mandates are driving 10.1% of current home sales.
Business Insider, September 13, 2023
The earth-shattering news over the previous weekend was that Taylor Swift traveled to Kansas City to cheer on her (rumored) boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. I'm not sure why everyone is surprised to see Swift at a football stadium. She’s played in more football stadiums this year (17) than Kelce will this season (12 max).
Morning Brew, September 25, 2023
While on a fishing trip in the Florida Keys with her family this summer, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor reeled in an unexpected catch: 70 pounds of cocaine, estimated to be worth more than $1 million.
“Everything is habit-forming, so make sure what you do is what you want to be doing.”
Wilt Chamberlain
September 25, 2023
Tesla isn’t (yet) as labor-efficient as its peers. Tesla’s rapid growth saw it deliver 1.3 million vehicles last year – roughly 10 deliveries for every Tesla employee. Jeep and Chrysler owner Stellantis delivered 22 cars per employee, Ford managed 24.5, and GM delivered nearly 6 million vehicles with a workforce of 167,000, or 35 deliveries per employee.
From 2021 to now, investments in Artificial intelligence totaled nearly $94 billion. If AI continues this growth trajectory, it could add 1% to the U.S. GDP by 2030.
College grads born in the 1960s had two to three times the wealth of non-grads. But those born in the 1980s had only a bit more wealth than high school graduates born in the same decade. The culprit: The rising expense of college and student debt.
The New York Times, September 5, 2023
“By the time you’re 80 years old, you’ve learned everything. Only now you have to remember it.”
George Burns
AMC Theaters raked in more Than $817 million in food and drink sales, reporting costs of just $153 million associated with that revenue — a whopping 81% margin.
Global economic losses from natural disasters in 2022 stood at $313 billion, with only $132 billion of that amount insured – making 2022 the fifth costliest year for insurers on record.
Aon, August 8, 2023
Most U.S. dog owners are now wary of vaccinating their pets for a host of conditions, including rabies. Some 53% of owners have concerns about the shots’ safety and efficacy and 37% worry they could make their dogs autistic.
Reuters, September 12, 2023
September 18, 2023
A dummy portfolio of stocks selected by ChatGPT significantly outperformed some of the leading investment funds in the U.K. From March 6 to April 28, the continuing study showed that the AI-generated portfolio increased in value by 4.9%, surpassing the 3% gains of the S&P 500 index, while major U.K. investment funds lost 0.8%, over the same period. As of July 27, the ChatGPT fund had racked up nearly a 10% return.
Chinese goods made up 13.3% of U.S. imports during the first six months of this year- the lowest level since 2003. The peak was nearly 22% in 2017.
The Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2023
Last year, 650,000 Americans over 80 were still working, up 18% from the previous decade. At 76, 79, and 80, Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards, and Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones are just one example of how the makeup of the workforce is grayer than you might think.
Morning Brew, September 7, 2023
“On what principle is that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?”
Thomas Babington Macaulay
The amount held in money market mutual funds has recently hit a fresh record of $5.625 trillion.
NFL running backs just want to be appreciated. Total pay for the once-marquee position has increased just 11% since 2011, compared with at least 90% for every other offensive position. Not a single running back ranks in the league’s 100 highest-paid players.
MorningBrew, September 8, 2023
“Whatever you do, always give 100%. Unless you’re donating blood.”
Bill Murray
September 11, 2023
Deloitte report from August found that 66% of remote workers would quit their jobs if they had to go back into the office five days a week. When Grindr, the dating app, told all 178 employees to return to the office at least two days a week last month- roughly 45% resigned.
Morning Brew. September 7, 2023
Returns to online retailers are now averaging close to 20%, and returns of apparel are often double that. Winter holiday returns in the U.S. are now more than $300 billion dollars a year, or about one and a half percent of GDP- which would be bigger than the GDP of many countries worldwide.
The New Yorker, August 14, 2023
Foot traffic in “top-tier” shopping malls is up 12% from 2019.
“At best, most college presidents are running something that is somewhere between a faltering corporation and a hotel.”
Leon Botstein
An average NFL broadcast lasts well over three hours, yet it delivers a total of only 18 minutes of football action.
FiveThirtyEight, January 31, 2020
In 2015, residents in Woodland, NC expressed concern that a proposed solar farm would consume too much sunlight. One resident told the town council that the farm would steal sunlight that plants need, while another warned that it might “suck up all the energy from the sun.”
“It’s my belief we develop language because of our deep inner need to complain.”
Lily Tomlin
September 4, 2023
“The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.”
Warren Bennis
On Thursday evening, August 10th, a vehicle nearly ran over a group of pedestrians leaving a nearby movie theater, then crashed into an electronic sign flashing the words “Don’t Drink and Drive.” The driver was arrested for driving under the influence.
France is about to spend about $216 million destroying nearly 80 million gallons of surplus wine, enough liquid to fill more than 100 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The problem is shrinking demand as the average French citizen drinks about 40 liters of wine per year, compared to 136 liters in 1926.
Some 323,000 workers have already gone on strike in 2023, making it the busiest year for private-sector strikes since 2000. A 2022 Gallup poll found that 71% of Americans now approve of unions, a high not seen since 1965.
On Saturday, August 19th, the annual Soccer Tournament for World Peace in Alberta's capital city of Edmonton was postponed after violence broke out. Eighty police officers, including a tactical unit, had to be called in to quell the violence.
Edmonton Journal, August 19, 2023
Two fans were injured from shots fired during the fourth inning at a White Sox baseball game in Chicago on Friday, the result of the “accidental discharge” of a concealed weapon hidden in the folds of a woman’s skin. “She reportedly snuck the gun in past metal detectors hiding it in her belly fat” stated Chicago sportscaster Peggy Kusinski.
“When you combine ignorance with leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.”
Warren Buffet
August 28, 2023
Only 11% of U.S. household debt has an adjustable interest rate. That means many Americans are locked into existing fixed-rate mortgages/auto loans/student loans and have not been impacted by the Fed’s 11 rate hikes.
The Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2023
A wave of gun violence against doctors, nurses, and security staff in U.S. hospitals has put healthcare workers at greater risk of injury than workers in any other profession, including law enforcement.
The international calling code for Russia is 007.
The New York Times, Aug 13, 2023
Phoenix, which recently had a record-breaking 31 consecutive days of temperatures at or above 110 degrees Fahrenheit, is the country's fastest-growing metropolitan area.
“The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.”
Rudiger Dornbusch
The number of cattle in the U.S. is at its lowest level in nearly a decade and is on track to drop by more than 2 billion pounds in 2024- the biggest annual decline since 1979.
The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2023
“Thomas Jefferson once said, we should never judge a president by his age, only by his works. And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.”
President Ronald Reagan
August 21, 2023
Although it is more expensive for consumers to borrow money now, they also have more options to put their cash to work. American households are earning an extra $121 billion annually from income on investments versus a year ago.
The Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2023
A recent study found that 60% of today’s workers are employed in occupations that didn’t exist in 1940.
Taylor Swift’s Eras concert tour could generate some $4.6 billion in economic activity in North America alone, taking into account both stadium capacity and people’s reported spending plans on things like tickets, merchandise, and travel. That would be roughly on par, after adjusting for inflation, with the revenues the Beijing Olympics generated in 2008.
The New York Times, Aug 13, 2023
The city of Atlanta mistakenly demolished a man’s house in a mix-up over zip codes. Everett Tripodis says that when he received a letter from the city, he assumed it was an offer of compensation. Instead, it was a bill for $68,000, and the city is now suing him for the cost of the demolition.
In June, the median price of an existing home increased to $410k, close to an all-time high. For context, a buyer making a 20% down payment on the median-priced house would pay $465k in interest over the life of a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage- more than the cost of the house itself.
The legal U.S. marijuana industry has grown into a behemoth, raking in roughly $30 billion in 2022. By comparison, Americans in the same year spent $7 billion on ice cream, $20 billion on chocolate, and $28 billion on craft beer.
-The Washington Post, August 17, 2023
“I scream, you scream, we all scream, and then the police come and it’s really awkward.”
Anonymous
August 14, 2023
Almost $10 trillion has been restored to equity valuations in the past nine months. Up 27% from its October trough, the S&P 500 is now about 5% away from reclaiming its all-time high of 4,796.56 reached in January 2022.
A Moscow court fined Apple 400,000 rubles ($4,274) for not deleting “inaccurate” content about what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The S&P 500 lost an average of 1.1% in September, making it the worst month for stock performance.
The Wall Street Journal, August 4, 2023
“Hollywood is like high school but with money.”
Michael Ovitz
Additional fees have been around for a long time, but they are cropping up everywhere these days. It is estimated that Americans now spend more than $65 billion on “junk fees” every year.
In a recent dig, a man found over 700 gold coins buried in a Kentucky cornfield, a discovery worth millions. The $1, $10, and $20 coins minted between 1840 and 1863 were likely buried in advance of raids by Confederate troops. The most valuable finds are several 1863 $20 Liberty Double Eagles, which can be worth more than $300,000. One rare coin dealer calls finding multiple 1863 Double Eagles “nearly incomprehensible.”
“I find it hard to believe that bears made porridge and the only thing wrong with it was the temperature.”
Anonymous
August 7, 2023
The S&P 500 rose an impressive 3.1% last month. When the index has risen at least 2.5% in July, it averages a gain of 8.4% in the second half of the year.
“One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells, and they both think they are astute.”
There are now more NBA players with $30 million annual salaries than CEOs of S&P 500 companies who are guaranteed that much.
Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2023
It took nearly eight years to sell the first 1 million battery-powered cars, trucks, and vans in the U.S., a milestone hit in 2018. It took just 10 months to go from 3 million to 4 million through June.
There are 4 times more hedge funds than there are Taco Bells.
Financial Times, February 21, 2023
According to the SAG-AFTRA actors union, about 80% of members make less than $27,000 a year.
“It is rumored that a sequel is in the works to the 1996 movie, “Independence Day.” I am not sure how scary it will be since an alien invasion would be only like the fifth worst thing we’re dealing with right now.”
Jimmy Fallon
July 31, 2023
“There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.”
Yosemite National Park Ranger
“It’s obvious that women are smarter than men. Think about it: diamonds are a girl’s best friend; a man’s best friend is a dog.”
Joan Rivers
“Bull markets are born on pessimism, they grow on skepticism, they mature on optimism and they die on euphoria.”
John Templeton
“The two most frightening words in Washington are ‘bipartisan consensus.’ Bipartisan consensus is like when my doctor and my lawyer agree with my wife that I need help.”
P.J. O’Rourke
“Football combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.”
George Will
“When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.’”
President Theodore Roosevelt
“It gets worse faster than better quicker.”
Yogi Berra
July 24, 2023
The U.S. today accounts for 58% of the output of the G-7 group of leading nations, compared to 40% in 1990. Investors who put $100 into the S&P 500 in 1990 would have more than $2,000 today, four times what they would have earned had they invested elsewhere in the rich world. Incomes for the country’s poorest fifth have risen in real terms by 74% since 1990. America has done very well in the past three decades. And it will keep doing so if Americans can avoid narratives of negativity that invite politicians to “mess up the next 30 years.”
On average, those who gave a number, believe they need about $1.27 million to retire comfortably, however, the average respondent who shared their retirement savings had just $89,300 in the bank, their 401(k), or other accounts.
Business Insider, June 25, 2023
“The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.”
Will Rogers
Last year was a record-setting year for income tax payments. Americans paid out an estimated 14.7% of their personal income in 2022, an all-time high. The main reason for this record-setting tax burden is that asset prices rose so much, and people sold them for big profits. For many others, there was bracket creep as inflation caused some incomes to get bumped temporarily into higher brackets.
Over the last 30 years, the purchasing power of the U.S. consumer dollar has been cut in half due to inflation. At the same time, adjusting for inflation, the S&P 500 has gained 681 points or roughly 7% per year.
An Italian teacher who was fired for being absent from work for 20 years has vowed to defend herself. The secondary school teacher, who specializes in history and philosophy, said she had documents to prove her story but told Repubblica newspaper: “Sorry, but right now I’m at the beach.”
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”
W.C. Fields
July 17, 2023
Roughly 1 in 2 people who work in finance would change jobs – or already have – if their managers required them to spend more days in the office.
The Economic Times, June 5, 2023
Last year, 13,000 weddings in the United States cost over $1 million, or roughly 250 million-dollar weddings a weekend.
Park Hotels & Resorts, the operator of two of the most prominent hotels in San Francisco, stopped making payments on a $725 million loan tied to the Hilton Union Square and Parc 55, in essence giving up on those properties.
“The day you die is just like any other, only shorter.”
Samuel Beckett
Roughly 650,000 Americans over 80 were working last year, about 18% more than a decade earlier. Some people have been pressed back into duty by inflation and stock-market volatility while some cite a simpler reason to keep working- they just want to.
The Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2023
Adjusted for purchasing power, the average income in Mississippi, America’s poorest state, is higher than that of France.
To remedy a cybersecurity mistake, one Illinois high school reset students’ passwords to “Ch@ngeme!” and told them to change their password. Parents and students were furious when they realized (much more quickly than school administrators) they could now log in to any other student’s account.
July 10, 2023
Apple, the company wants rights to the image of apples, the fruit, in Switzerland- one of the dozens of countries where it’s flexing its legal muscles. Between 2019 and 2021, Apple filed more trademark oppositions- attempts to enforce its IP over other companies- than Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, and Google combined.
One study of retail currency traders found 70% on average lose money every quarter, and lose it all within 12 months.
The median price for a home in Miami is $585,000. To afford that, homeowners would need to spend 79.9% of Miami’s average monthly income on homeownership expenses topping the amount paid by homeowners in Los Angeles and New York City.
“The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.”
Rudiger Dornbusch
China’s controversial one-child policy, in place for more than three decades, was removed in 2015. Most people would have guessed that the country’s birth rate would rise, however, the opposite happened. Birth rates in 2022 are now 6.77 babies born per 1,000 people- the lowest level on record.
Francesca Gino, a prominent professor at Harvard Business School known for researching dishonesty and unethical behavior, has been accused of submitting work that contained falsified results. After examining a number of Gino’s papers, evidence of fraud was found that spanned over a decade, most recently in 2020.
“The problem with internet quotes is that you can’t always depend on their accuracy.”
Abraham Lincoln, 1864
July 3, 2023
“History is one long processional of crazy ideas.”
Phil Knight
The New York Yankees’ Domingo Germán pitched the 24th perfect game in Major League Baseball history retiring all 27 Oakland Athletics batters he faced over nine dominant innings. Historically, the DOW has had very strong returns following perfect games: The index has been higher 81% of the time a year later, with an average return of nearly 13%.
We’ve moved so much water in the past two decades that the planet has shifted at least 30 inches off its axis. We displaced 5.5 million Empire State Buildings' worth of groundwater between 1993 and 2010 because the water we pump from underground aquifers for irrigation and other activities mostly ends up in the ocean instead of going back into the ground.
“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
Benjamin Franklin
U.S. wages outpaced inflation on a year-over-year basis in May by 0.2%, ending the ignominious streak of 25 consecutive months of negative real-way growth.
It’s going to be a great summer for teenagers looking for a job. Wages for 15–19-year-olds are approaching $15.00 an hour on average, an astounding 41% increase from January 2020 levels.
“The world is not driven by greed. It’s driven by envy.”
Charlie Munger
June 26, 2023
The S&P 500 finally exited out of the longest bear market since 1948. It took 248 days for the market to close up more than 20% from its most recent low.
The U.S. economy is now 5.4% bigger than it was when the pandemic struck in 2019.
U.S. Department of the Treasury, June 5, 2023
“My Wealth has come from a combination of living in America, some lucky genes, and compound interest.”
Warren Buffett
As of April of 2023, spending on manufacturing construction – new factories – is tracking at a $189 billion annual rate, triple the average rate in the 2010s ($63 billion).
A Ukrainian hotline for Russians who want to surrender has received more than 17,000 inquiries since September 2022.
The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2023
“Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.”
Benjamin Franklin
Trying to start a conversation with a woman at a restaurant in Ontario, an intoxicated man thought he was being threatened when he asked the woman what perfume she was wearing. She replied, “Juliette Has a Gun.” Police were called and the woman explained the name of her perfume was actually “Juliette Has A Gun.” The officers corroborated the story and ensured the man got home safely.
June 19, 2023
Eight companies (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, Netflix, and Nvidia) now make up 30% of the S&P 500’s market capitalization, up from 22% at the start of the year.
The Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2023
Stock ownership is on the rise with 61% of people reported owning stocks, the highest percentage since 2008.
Americans say you need a net worth of at least $2.2 million to feel wealthy. Despite these lofty numbers, 48% of Americans say they feel wealthy. However, of those that do, their average net worth is $560,000.
“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.”
Stephen Hawking
In the past year, the DEA seized over 379 million doses of fentanyl- enough to kill every American. Just two milligrams of fentanyl, the small amount that fits on the tip of a pencil, is considered a potentially deadly dose.
U.S. seniors lose $28.3 billion annually as a result of financial exploitation. The vast majority of funds stolen from older Americans are purloined by someone they know. Friends, family members, or caregivers are responsible for the theft of $20.8 billion, or 72%. Exploitation by strangers accounts for $8 billion, or 28%.
Investment News, June 15, 2023
“Don’t piss off old people. The older they get the less likely “Life in Prison” is a deterrent.”
Anonymous
June 12, 2023
If companies keep giving up office leases, office landlords may not be able to collect enough rent to cover mortgage payments. The bulk of the $1.2 trillion in office space debt is owed to smaller regional banks which are already in turmoil from depositors fleeing to bigger banks.
About 800,000 Maryland license plates are unwittingly advertising a Philippines-based gambling site. How? The plates have URLs that originally hosted a website about the War of 1812, but the domain changed hands, and it started redirecting to a site in which a blinking, bikini-clad woman advertises “Philippines Best Betting Site.”
Last year, Americans spent $95 billion betting on sports in legal jurisdictions. That is more money than the amount spent on ride-sharing, coffee, or streaming.
“Drinking coffee in the morning helps others live longer.”
Anonymous
A Sherpa guide summited Mount Everest for the 26th time; tying the all-time record.
According to the U.S National Safety Council, the odds of dying in a plane are about 1 in 205,552, compared with 1 in 102 in a car.
“Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.”
Mike Tyson
June 5, 2023
The S&P 500 is up 12% this year, but it would be negative without the contribution of seven tech companies.
The Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2023
Fund managers today have to lowest exposure to stocks relative to bonds since 2009.
The Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2023
This year, the average age of a passenger vehicle on the road hit a record 12.5 years. Today, of the more than 284 million vehicles in operation, there are nearly 122 million in the U.S. that are more than 12 years old.
“Patience is not simply the ability to wait. It’s how we behave while we’re waiting.”
Joyce Meyer
Since the 1980s, the S&P 500 gained an average of 6% in the three months after the Fed made its final increase in a rate-hike campaign.
In 1989, when adjusted for inflation, total family wealth in the U.S. was about $38 trillion. By 2022, that wealth had more than tripled, reaching $140 trillion. Of the $84 trillion projected to be passed down from older Americans to millennial and Gen X heirs through 2045, $16 trillion will be transferred within the next decade.
The New York Times, March 17, 2023
“After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: when you’re full of bull, keep your mouth shut.”
Will Rogers
May 22, 2023
“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.”
George Washington
Apple's market cap is now greater than the value of every company in the Russell 2000 small cap index combined.
A recent study found that almost everyone who took a financial literacy class forgot what they learned within 20 months, and that financial literacy has a “negligible” impact on their future behavior.
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
Mark Twain
A new survey of Americans’ perception of the best long-term investment saw significant shifts. The percentage that saw real estate as the best long-term investment dropped from 45% to just 34%. The percentage who think that stocks and mutual funds were best, dropped from 24% to 18%. The biggest gain was in rocks. The percentage who said gold was the best investment increased from 15% to 26%.
“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”
George S. Patton
Snapchat influencer Caryn Marjorie made more than $71,000 in one week after releasing an AI version of herself, CarynAI, and charging fans $1 per minute for CarynAI to be their virtual girlfriend. As of last week, CarynAI had more than 1,000 “boyfriends” (aka paying subscribers).
May 22, 2023
Saudi Aramco’s $75.8 billion dividend payout last year was bigger than the next five largest payers combined. It’s set to raise its dividend by another $20 billion, equivalent to Microsoft’s annual dividend.
Despite the risk of the U.S. defaulting on its debts next month, equity traders have kept calm and carried on. But over in the bond market, investors are sweating. The cost of credit-default swaps, which act as insurance against a default, is higher in the U.S. than in emerging markets like Mexico and Brazil.
Institutions have pulled a net $333.9 billion from stocks over the past 12 months, while individual investors have yanked another $28 billion. Analysts say extreme defensive positioning and high levels of cash mean market returns could snap back quickly from any selloff as investors seek to put cash back to work.
The Wall Street Journal, May 14, 2023
“You can depend upon the Americans to do the right thing. But only after they have exhausted every other possibility.”
Winston Churchill
With Argentina’s inflation rate hitting 109%, the government is announcing emergency measures, including raising interest rates by 600 basis points to 97%.
The new Netflix show Queen Cleopatra has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 2%, possibly taking the crown for the lowest audience rating in TV history.
“Dance like no one is watching, but text and email like it will be read in court one day.”
Your Lawyer
May 15, 2023
The U.S. spends more on its military than the next 10 nations combined. Last year, the U.S. spent $877 billion on defense, more than 10 times the amount spent by Russia, which came in third at $86 billion. China, at #2, spent $292 billion.
New York City has 26 Empire State Buildings worth of empty office space.
Digit, a “warehouse robot” on display at a trade show in Chicago, collapsed after a mere 20 hours of nonstop shelf stacking.
“Lettin’ the cat out of the bag is a whole lot easier’n puttin’ it back.”
Will Rogers
In 2022, reported losses from investment scams in the U.S. totaled $3.31 billion.
In the most recent quarter, Harley-Davidson reported credit losses of $52.6 million. There are literally not enough repossession companies to handle the volume of delinquencies that motorcycle owners are driving.
The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2023
“I’ve been virtually everything you can’t respect: a lawyer, a mayor, a major-market news anchor, and a talk-show host. If I get to heaven, we’re all going.”
Jerry Springer
May 8, 2023
Women currently hold 41 (8.2%) of CEO positions at S&P 500 companies.
Nearly three-quarters of American adults blame the media for dividing the nation, and just under half say they have little to no trust in the media’s ability to report the news fairly and accurately.
“Action speaks louder than words, but not nearly as often.”
Mark Twain
The U.S. accounts for 58% of the GDP of the G-7 countries- up from 40% in 1990 and our per person income is 30% higher in purchasing power than incomes of Western Europe.
The Economist, April 13, 2023
Heart disease is responsible for one in every five deaths in the U.S. However, researchers revealed that between 1999 and 2020, the rate of deaths from heart attacks fell from 87 per 100,000 people to 38 per 100,000 people. Despite setbacks caused by the pandemic, the risk of death from America’s biggest killer of people has more than halved since the beginning of the 21st century.
According to the latest annual survey, half of current college students say their coursework is “overly difficult.” The survey also found that 1 in 4 students consider it a “barrier to success” if their classes have “strict attendance or participation requirements,” while 57% believed that deadlines for assignments should be made “flexible.”
Inside Higher Ed, February 12, 2023
Dogs prepare you for babies. Cats prepare you for teenagers.”
Anonymous
May 1, 2023
Going back to 1982, the S&P 500 returned an average of 19% in the 12 months after the federal-funds rate peaked.
The Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2023
U.S. government debt is perhaps the most widely held class of security in the world. 21.8% of the public debt, or $6.87 trillion, is owned by another arm of the federal government which includes Medicare, specialized trust funds, and civil service and military retirement programs. However, the biggest chunk of those “intragovernmental holdings” belongs to Social Security. As of the end of January, the program’s retirement and disability trust funds together held more than $2.8 trillion in special non-traded Treasury securities or 9% of the total debt.
Pew Research, February 14, 2023
Less than a decade after China ended its one-child policy, Sichuan, home to 84 million people, is telling residents to have as many babies as they want, even if they're unmarried- a perk that was previously only available to married parents.
“If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need.”
Warren Buffett
Only 12% of respondents in a recent WSJ poll said they were “very happy.” The smallest share since the poll began in 1972.
The Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2023
Both China and India have more than 1.4 billion people, and combined, they make up more than a third of the world’s 8 billion people.
“Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it’s called golf.”
Will Rogers
April 24, 2023
Congress today is older than it has ever been. Across all United States senators and representatives, the median age of the 118th Congress is 59 years old. The median senator is 65 years old, a record high; the median representative is about 58.
FiveThirtyEight, April 3, 2023
The United States is now the biggest supplier of crude oil to the European Union, providing 18% of the bloc’s crude imports. Russia accounted for as much as 31% of EU oil imports until the end of January 2022.
U.S. workers 45 and older think it will take about $1,100,000 in savings to retire in comfort. But only 21% expect to reach even the $1 million mark, down from 24% in 2022. Furthermore, the study showed more than half of the respondents (59%) expect to have led than 500,000 stashed away for their golden years, including 34% who expect to have less than $250,000 in savings.
“Advances are made by answering questions. Discoveries are made by questioning answers.”
Astrophysicist Bernard Haish
In the U.S. there are an estimated 700 million to 2 billion parking spaces which means there are between 2.5 to seven spaces for every vehicle in the country. Fourteen percent of Los Angeles County alone is dedicated to parking.
Banks and mortgage companies lost #301 on average for each loan they originated in 2022. In 2021, during a record mortgage boom, lenders earned $2,339 per loan.
“In a nuclear war, all men are cremated equal.”
Dexter Gordon
April 17, 2023
IRS Publication17 notes “Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income” declarations. Similarly, it says, “If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless you return it to its rightful owner in the same year.”
MarketWatch, December 30, 2021
A new poll found that 60% of Americans agreed that the government is spending too much. But when asked to select specific areas for cuts, the only category a majority wanted to shrink was foreign aid- “only 1% of the budget.”
From 1970 to 2021, the median U.S. income increased by 7.7 times, the median rent by 11 times, and the median home sales price by 18 times.
Heisenberg Report, April 15, 2023
“You don’t pay taxes- they take taxes!”
Chris Rock
The debt limit has been raised more than 80 times since the 1960s.
Pew Research, February 14, 2023
Nearly 6% of patients who go to the emergency room wind up being misdiagnosed. Out of the 7.4 million misdiagnosis errors made annually, 2.6 million result in harm that could have been prevented, and 370,000 result in the patient becoming permanently disabled or dying.
Katie Couric Media, December 16, 2022
“A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule.”
Michael Pollan
April 10, 2023
Leona Helmsley, widely dubbed the "Queen of Mean,” said, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." And in a fitting bit of chronology, the judge ordered her prison sentence to start on April 15.
In 2021, India exported more in software ($133 billion) than Saudi Arabia did in oil ($113 billion).
Level Up, February 6, 2022
While U.S. government debt is perhaps the most widely held class of security in the world, 21.8% of the public debt, or $6.87 trillion, is owned by another arm of the federal government itself. That includes Medicare; specialized trust funds, such as those for highways and bank deposit insurance; and civil service and military retirement programs. But the biggest chunk of those “intragovernmental holdings” belongs to Social Security. As of the end of January, the program’s retirement and disability trust funds together held more than $2.8 trillion in special non-traded Treasury securities or 9% of the total debt.
Pew Research, February 14, 2023
“I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.”
Ronald Reagan
Apple and Microsoft alone now account for 13.3% of the S&P 500, the highest level on record. Not since IBM and AT&T in 1978 have two stocks made up a greater share of the benchmark.
Gwyneth Paltrow not only won the $1 she requested in her countersuit against Terry Sanderson, but she also won the internet. Why was the trial so viral? Mainly because it produced so many soundbites that seemed like they were lifted from a White Lotus episode skewering the wealthy and aloof. After being asked how the crash inconvenienced her, Paltrow told the courtroom, “Well, I lost half a day of skiing.” Sanderson’s witnesses said that following the crash, he was unable to enjoy wine tastings.
Lincoln died. The Titanic sank, Ray Crock started McDonald's, and Babe Ruth hit his first home run, all on April 15th.
Brainy History
April 3, 2023
In 33 A.D., after property speculation fed by low-interest rates led to a crash, the emperor Tiberius authorized a banking commission to bail out wealthy real-estate speculators.
While struggling to restore its former glory, General Electric said it would cancel $14.4 million in stock awards to CEO Larry Culp for failing to meet performance goals. For 2022, GE reported Culp’s compensation as negative $23.8 million.
The Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2023
A blended study of 105,000 headlines and 370 million impressions concluded that “each additional negative word” in a news headline increased the click-through rate by 2.3%.
Nature Human Behavior, March 16, 2023
“When you understand every opinion is a vision loaded with personal history, you will start to understand that all judgment is a confession.”
Nikola Tesla
Data from Cigna reveals that the doctors they keep on staff to approve or deny claims are really, really fast at denying claims. One medical doctor declined 60,000 claims in a single month. Over the course of just two months, Cigna doctors declined 300,000 requests without even glancing at a file, spending an average of just 1.2 seconds per case.
A new study found the cringing embarrassment caused by a dad’s lame, corny puns, or, Dad jokes, teaches kids how to endure awkward moments. By continually telling their children jokes that are so bad that they’re embarrassing, fathers may push their children’s limits for how much embarrassment they can handle. The article said. "They show their children that embarrassment isn’t fatal.”
Yahoo!entertainment, March 18, 2023
If April showers bring May flowers then what do May flowers bring?
Click here for the answer to Mark’s favorite Daddy joke
March 27, 2023
U.S. banks borrowed over $150 billion from the Fed’s discount window during the week ending March 15th, blowing past the previous record of $112 billion during the 2008 financial crisis.
The Washington Post, March 17, 2023
Some 30 million jobs in the U.S. are paying an average of $55,000 a year and don’t require a college degree.
Sales of luxury homes- defined as those estimated to be in the top 5% in market value, dropped 44.6% year over year.
“A luxury, once enjoyed, becomes a necessity.”
C. Northcote Parkinson
U.S. companies re-shored 364,000 jobs from overseas last year.
The Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2023
“Baseball is the only sport I know where the defense controls the ball.”
Ken Harrelson, Sports Illustrated, September 1976
An Illinois man has filed a class-action lawsuit against Buffalo Wild Wings because its so-called “Boneless Wings” are breast meat, not wings. Airmen Halim’s suit seeks punitive damages for what he calls a “clear-cut case of false advertising.” The restaurant chain mocked Halim’s complaint, noting in a tweet that “our buffalo wings are 0% buffalo.”
March 20, 2023
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."
Thomas Jefferson, 1802
History shows that the S&P 500 index typically leads the turn in the economy (up or down) by 3 to 11 months.
Africa has about 30% of the world's reserves of minerals that are crucial to helping the modern world transition to green energy.
The first and only time the United States was debt free was at the beginning of 1835 and stayed that way until 1837. It remains the only time that a major country was without debt.
The top 40% of wage earners are sitting on more than a trillion dollars in extra savings amassed during the early part of the pandemic. Lower-income households, on the other hand, have been burning through their savings as they deal with higher costs of rent, food, and other essentials.
Remote work has made it possible for more people with disabilities to work. According to government data, the employment rate for Americans with disabilities has surged, hitting a new record high last year.
At one Capitol Hill appearance in 1983, a senator remarked that his colleagues had blamed Fed Chairman Paul Volker for just about everything except for “herpes and giving away the Panama Canal,” then quipped, “but we’re not through with the hearings yet.”
Limitless: The Federal Reserve Takes on a New Age Crises, 2023
March 13, 2023
The first Academy Award ceremony was held on May 16, 1929, and the very first Oscar was presented to actor Emil Jannings. The silent-movie star was actually the runner-up in the leading role category, second to celebrity dog Rin Tin Tin who had picked up more votes but was denied the award by an embarrassed academy.
The Federal Railroad Administration, which has been monitoring annual train accidents across America since 1975, has recorded more than 12,500 derailments in the last decade alone. That’s equivalent to some 24 trains veering off track every single week.
Chartr, March 3, 2023
Over the last 50 years, the marriage rate in the U.S. has dropped nearly 60%.
Axios, February 25, 2015
Charlie Chaplin, the Lifetime Achievement award winner from the Academy of Motion Pictures, once entered a Charlie Chaplain look-alike contest. He came in third.
Newsweek, April 16, 2023
The appeal of a shorter work week got a boost with the release of a study involving 61 U.K. companies which rated the overall experience an 8.3 out of 10. Fifty-six of the companies – 92% - decided to continue trying the new schedule after the pilot ended. Eighteen made it permanent.
Bloomberg, February 20, 2023
Volkswagen apologized for refusing to help find a stolen SUV with an abducted 2-year-old inside. Volkswagen told officers the stolen vehicle’s Car-Net trial had ended and said a $150 fee to restart the service would need to be paid before the carmaker would locate the SUV. By the time police paid $150 to reactivate the service, the child had been safely recovered.
Fred Astaire was great, but don’t forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, but backward and in high heels.
Frank and Ernest comic strip in 1982
March 6, 2023
U.S. productivity growth has averaged 1.4% annually since 2005, below the 2.2% post-World War II average. Returning to historical rates could generate $10 trillion in U.S. GDP by 2030.
McKinsey Global Institute, February 20, 2023
Apartment rents fell in every single major metropolitan area in the U.S. over the past six months through January. This is the first time in five years that rents fell every month over a six-month period.
The Wall Street Journal, February 27, 2023
“Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.”
Sinclair Lewis
There are more than four times as many hedge funds as there are Taco Bells.
Financial Times, February 21, 2023
U.S. healthcare spending grew 2.7% in 2021, reaching $4.3 trillion or $12,914 per person. As a share of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, healthcare spending accounted for 18.3 percent.
A U.S. homebuyer with a $2,500 monthly budget can afford a $384,000 home today compared with a $518,000 home that the same buyer could have purchased with the 3% rates common in 2021.
MarketWatch, February 23, 2023
Since 2007, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics, which investigates allegations of misconduct by Senators and staff, has received 1,523 complaints that alleged rule violations. Over the course of the past 16 years, the committee has voted to issue disciplinary sanctions in zero cases.
February 27, 2023
After shunning stocks for the safety of money-market funds last year, retail traders, on a net basis, poured an average of $1.51 billion per day into the U.S. equity market in January.
MarketWatch, February 17, 2023
Spain's government has been shamed after spending millions on trains because they don’t fit through its tunnels. In June 2020, Spanish railway giant Renfe commissioned the manufacturing of 31 trains with dimensions that have now been discovered not to conform to the railway network on which they were going to travel.
“Bad times traditionally produce good books”
Salmon Rushdie
Last year’s national average babysitting rate was $22.68 an hour for one child, $25.37 an hour for two, and $27.70 an hour for three. Urban Sitter’s booking data from 15,000 U.S. families shows a staggering 21% increase in just two years.
Amazon’s average cut of each sale from the 2 million small businesses that sell on its online marketplace surpassed 50% in 2022, going up from 35.2% in 2016 to 51.8% last year.
For a family, a day at the slopes in five popular ski destinations runs alarmingly close to a month’s rent.
A visitor at an art fair in Miami knocked over a $42,000 balloon dog sculpture by Jeff Koons, causing it to shatter into over 100 pieces and resulting in what experts are calling the fifth-worse outcome for a balloon on U.S. soil in the past two weeks.
February 20, 2023
India has suddenly become the fifth largest country for lithium reserves after discovering 5.9 million tons of mineral, which is crucial for the production of batteries for electric cars.
Since the financial crises, initial public offerings and secondary offerings for S&P 500 companies have raised a combined $2.5 trillion, compared with $20 trillion spent on share buybacks and mergers and acquisitions.
“Standing still is the fastest way of moving backward in a rapidly changing world”
Lauren Bacall
The grocery store Kroger has an in-house data operation called 84.51, which sells information to 1,400 companies. The company claims to have over 2,000 variables on customers including 18 years of data from the Kroger Plus card program, including 2 billion annual transactions from 60 million households. The company claims to have over 35 petabytes of customer data.
Physical store openings exceeded closings on an annual basis last year for the first time since 2016.
On average, more than one car crashes into a 7-Eleven storefront every day.
MorningBrew, February 16, 2023
“On what principle is that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?”
Thomas Babington Macaulay
February 13, 2023
The average American family spends nearly $1900 a year on food they don’t eat.
The price of consumer goods has increased by a factor of four since the late 1970s. College costs have increased by a factor of 14.
Public affairs executive Geoff Morell started working at Disney in January of 2022 and left four months later after a public-affairs implosion. He was paid more than $8 million for his time – earning $119,505 per day.
The Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2023
“Work is most fulfilling when you’re at the comfortable, exciting edge of not quite knowing what you’re doing.”
Alain de Botton
Efforts to save the Monarch butterfly are paying off, with 335,479 butterflies migrating to the California coastline last year, a welcome increase from less than 2,000 butterflies in 2020.
Almost 5,500 satellites orbit the planet with the potential for another 58,000 by 2030. About 3,000 of those are no longer in service, or “dead.”
“On Thursday, the state department revealed that the Chinese spy balloon the U.S. downed last weekend was capable of monitoring Americans’ electronic communications. Meanwhile, AT&T told their customers, ‘Relax, they can’t spy on you if you can’t get a signal!’”
Jimmy Fallon
February 6, 2023
To the extent one believes that history will rhyme, there might be even more good news from market numerology: The “Decennial Pattern” shows that major bear market bottoms have been made in years ending with a “2” – 1932, 1942, 1962, 1982, and 2002.
The money supply growth rate for December was a negative 1.3% versus a year ago, the lowest ever and marking the first-ever decline in M2 based on all data available going back to 1959.
Shell became the latest oil giant to report eye-watering profits last year. It earned nearly $40 billion in 2022, making last year its most profitable in its 115-year history.
Morning Brew, February 3, 2023
A thief who stole a statue of St. Michael from a church in Mexico tripped during his getaway and was stabbed in the neck by the statue’s sword. Carlos Alonso is recovering in a hospital, while St. Michael was unharmed.
Several states are raising their minimum wages this year. The tight labor market has forced employees' wages that are much higher than the legal minimum. Average hourly pay for nonsupervisory retail workers rose 4% in December from a year earlier, to $19.93.
The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2023
2022 was one of the safest years ever for aviation and 2022 saw one of the lowest death rates from natural disasters and that so far, the 2020s have been the safest decade in history for natural disasters.
Future Crunch, January 28, 2023
The San Antonio Zoo is offering a special Valentine’s Day greeting for exes who just won’t bug off. For $10, the zoo will name a cockroach after your not-so-special someone and feed it to an animal. Those not into bugs can choose a rodent for $25 instead. Donors can opt to send their ex-boo a digital Valentine’s Day Card informing them that a cockroach or rodent was named after them and fed to an animal. Last year they received more than 8,000 donations from all 50 states and over 30 different countries.
January 30, 2023
As of last Monday morning, Jan 16, the Russell 3000 benchmark for the entire U.S. stock market was up about 4.85% over the three-month period since late October 2022. By contrast, the MSCI World ex-U.S. index has surged more than 19%, while the pan-European Stoxx 600 was up more than 12%.
In 2022, an estimated 420,000 new rental apartments were built in the United States, the highest amount for new multifamily construction in a half-century.
The New York Times, January 20, 2023
A powerful new AI chatbot tool known as ChatGPT recently passed law exams in four courses at the University of Minnesota and another exam at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.
CNN Business, January 26, 2023
“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”
Ernest Hemingway
The Federal Reserve's most recent report on costs of consumer credit showed average interest rates on bank-issued credit cards touching 19.1% in the fourth quarter, a record high.
Before synthetic insulin was introduced in 1982, one pound of insulin required eight thousand pounds of pancreas glands ripped from more than 23,500 pigs or cows.
In October of 2022, billionaire Larry Ellison was pulled over for running a stop sign and speeding on the Hawaiian Island of Lanai – which is 98% owned by Ellison.
RepublicWorld, January 13, 2023
January 23, 2023
Negative returns in both stocks and bonds over any 12-month window have occurred only three times since 1926.
Callan. May 13, 2022
About $42 trillion in new wealth was created in the first two years of the pandemic. For every $1 of that new wealth earned in the bottom 90%, a billionaire managed to snag another $1.7 million.
The Business Standard, January 16, 2023
“The Davos Economic Forum: Where Billionaires, tell Millionaires how the middle class feels.”
Jamie Dimon
According to Guinness World Records, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has lost more money than anyone in history.
NPR, January 12, 2023
Big banks have quietly abandoned the safe-deposit business- the two-key security tool that has been around since the Civil War. After the Great Recession, banks built fewer and smaller physical locations and safe deposit boxes were the first to go, however, customers are still asking for them. One New York City depositor was told that the current wait in Brooklyn is nine years.
Denmark had zero bank robberies last year while the U.S. reported 1,724.
The number of news stories about a recession in 2022 exceeded the number tracked in 2020 when the U.S. economy was actually in a recession.
January 16, 2023
In 2022, just five trading sessions accounted for more than 95% of the S&P 500’s index losses.
From the end of 2019 to the end of December 2022, stocks were up roughly 19%.
Axios Markets, December 31, 2022
The last time the S&P 500 index produced negative returns during the 12 months after a midterm election was 1939.
"If markets were rational, I'd be waiting tables for a living"
Warren Buffet
NFL games represented 82 of the top 100 TV programs in the U.S. last year.
Sports Illustrated, January 8, 2023
Argentina reported a 700% jump in babies named Lionel or Lionela after Lionel Messi led his country to victory in the World Cup.
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
Martin Luther King, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, Norway, 1964
January 9, 2023
New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau found that the U.S. population grew by only 0.38% from July 2021 to July 2022, which was the second-lowest growth on record behind the 0.16% growth registered during the first year of the pandemic. All told, 24 states had more deaths overall than births.
The cost of sending a standard 40-foot container from China to the U.S. West Coast is $1,935- down more than 90% from its September 2021 peak of $20,586.
The Washington Post, December 4, 2022
The highest rent growth ever recorded was a 45% increase in San Jose in 2000. The largest decline on record of 25% was also in San Jose in 2001.
Axios Markets February 14, 2022
“You can lead a man to Congress, but you can’t make him think.”
Milton Berle
In the past five years, Apple has generated $454 billion in cash from operations, all of which it has returned to shareholders in the form of stock buybacks and dividends. That’s more than the value of Exxon Mobile or JP Morgan Chase.
Bloomberg, December 20, 2022
More than 1 in 4 of the nearly 600 companies that went public via a traditional IPO in 2020 or 2021 are now trading at less than $2 per share, risking delisting.
The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 2022
"Exercise is for people who can't handle drugs and alcohol."
Lily Tomlin
January 2, 2023
“Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”
Jim Rohn
South Koreans consider a person a year old at birth and add a year to their age every New Year’s Day. A child born on New Year’s Eve can be considered to be two years old despite literally being born yesterday.
The “no-one-reads-anymore” and “physical-retail-is-dying” naysayers are getting rebuked by the facts on the ground. Barnes & Noble is opening more stores than it's closing and two of the new Barnes & Noble bookstores will open in locations that previously housed Amazon Books.
Morning Brew, December 20, 2022
“Middle age is when you’re faced with two temptations, and you choose the one that will get you home at 9:00 o’clock."
Ronald Reagan
When the S&P declines 20% or more in a calendar year, it’s been up the next year two-thirds of the time. The following 12 months have seen a median gain of 24.3%.
The DJIA is an average, not an index — it literally just averages the nominal share prices of 30 stocks. If one of the companies does a 4-for-1 share split, then overnight that company loses 75% of its weight in the Dow. For example, at current weightings, UnitedHealth Group has 3.5 times the weighting of Apple and 18 times the weighting of Intel.
Axios, December 6, 2022
“The two most frightening words in Washington are ‘bipartisan consensus.’ Bipartisan consensus is like when my doctor and my lawyer agree with my wife that I need help.”
P.J. O’Rourke
December 26, 2022
Many around the world paid special attention to the palindrome date of Feb 22, or 2/22/22. But perhaps no one did more than the Spear family of Burlington, North Carolina, who welcomed their baby girl on a night they’ll never forget. Baby Judah Grace was born to first-time parents Aberli and Hank Spear at 2:22 a.m. ET on Tuesday, 2/22/22. Adding to its rarity, she weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces, which equals 122 total ounces, and she was born in the hospital’s labor and delivery room No. 2.
Head Topics, February 23, 2022
Guinea Worm inched closer to being the third-ever disease to be fully eradicated. In 2022, only nine cases were recorded in two countries, an extraordinary reduction for a disease that infected 3.5 million people in 21 countries 35 years ago.
Future Crunch, December 16, 2022
As a proportion of the global population, fewer teenage girls are giving birth today than at any point in human history.
Future Crunch, December 16, 2022
“In today’s world, solving problems anywhere solves problems everywhere.”
Peter Diamandis
Thanks to a dog-relocation network, animal rescue, and increased demand for pets during the pandemic, the ASPCA now estimates 390,000 dogs and 530,000 cats are euthanized each year, down from 2.6 million as recently as 2011.
New York’s waterways are the cleanest they’ve been in over a century, and whales, dolphins, sharks, seals, crabs, seahorses, and oysters are returning in droves.
Future Crunch, December 16, 2022
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Carl Jung
December 19, 2022
Going back to the early 1970s, Fed hiking cycles lasted an average of 219 days (from the first hike to the first cut); we’re currently just beyond 260.
Liz Ann Sonders, December 9, 2022
The invention of the transistor occurred 75 years ago this week and today it is considered the most manufactured item in human history.
Marketplace, December 12, 2022
The shipping container business brought in $58.9 billion in profits in the third quarter of 2022, up 22.4% from last year and 158% higher than the combined profits of Meta, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said, “If I didn’t watch CNBC in the morning…the word ‘recession’ wouldn’t be in my vocabulary.” He made that statement while being interviewed on CNBC.
Morning Brew, December 7, 2022
A summary of every Jewish holiday: “They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat.”
Alan King
More than 350 companies have gone public in the U.S. since the start of 2020 by merging with a SPAC, or “blank check” company. Forty-nine percent of them have admitted to having ineffective internal controls and poor bookkeeping practices.
Financial Times, December 5, 2022
The estimated value of unwanted Christmas gifts is $15.2 billion, with about 61% of Americans receiving a present they do not like. 23% of people have labeled their friends as a source of unwanted gifts. In-laws take the second spot on the list above with 14%, and parents come third with 7%.
Capital Counselor, February 23, 2022
December 12, 2022
Since 196i, in inflation-adjusted terms, the S&P 500 has delivered an almost 3,000% return between the months of November and April. In stark contrast, the S&P has only delivered a cumulative return of 14% from May through October in those same years. Stated differently, the returns from November through April were 214 times greater than from May to October for the past 61 years.
In October, the U.S. savings rate fell to 2.3%. It’s the second-lowest savings rate on record going back to 1959.
The U.S. Money Supply (M2) has decreased by 1.5% over the past 7 months, the largest decline over a 7-month period on record. Since 1959 M2 has gone up every year but 2022 is on pace to be the first calendar year in which the Money Supply has fallen in the last 60+ years.
“The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.”
Mortimer Adler
Half of American workers wouldn’t recommend their job or employer to someone they care about. More than 4 in 10 wouldn’t wish their job on their worst enemy.
Marketplace, November 15, 2022
Americans waste more than 100 billion pounds, or 40% of their food each year. If food were a country, it would be the third-largest contributor to climate change after the U.S. and China.
Last week, texting celebrated its 30th birthday. What if texting had been around throughout human history? Maybe some of these messages would have been sent…
- Cleopatra to Mark Antony: “u up”
- Francis Scott Key to his buddy: “does ‘rockets’ red glare’ sound dumb??”
- Juliet to Romeo: “hey gonna pretend to be dead don’t freak out” (*message could not be sent)
Morning Brew, December 3, 2022
December 5, 2022
The median price of an existing home sold in the U.S. has now fallen 8% from its peak in June, the largest 4-month percentage decline since November 2008 to February 2009. After the last housing bubble peaked, prices fell 33%. Incredibly, the same decline today would only bring prices back to February 2020 levels.
Compund, November 21, 2022
Somebody or something out there is buying a lot of gold right now. Four hundred tons of it in the third quarter of this year – more than $20 billion worth at today’s price. That’s double the amount that changed hands in the second quarter, and more than quadruple the purchases in the first quarter.
Marketplace, November 22, 2022
On June 28th, 2009, Stephen Hawking threw a Champagne party for time travelers. He announced the party the day after it happened and he said no one showed up.
For the first time, women outnumber men in the New York Philharmonic – an all-male ensemble for most of its 180 years. The orchestra now has 45 women and 44 men.
The New York Times, November 22, 2022
“Every child is an artist until he’s told he’s not.”
John Lennon
The percentage of U.S. adults who smoke cigarettes has reached a new low of 11% this year.
Over the Thanksgiving holidays, a TSA agent in Fort Lauderdale discovered a raw chicken inside a passenger’s checked luggage- and a loaded handgun inside the chicken. The agency said that “stuffing a firearm inside your holiday bird for travel is a baste of time.”
The Washington Post, November 8, 2022
November 28, 2022
Qatar spent about $300 billion on stadiums and groundwork to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. That money totaled more than all previous World Cups and Olympics combined,
Although Germany has twice California’s population, California’s GDP is poised to hit $3.5 trillion this year and overtake Germany’s as the fourth-largest in the world after the U.S., China, and Japan.
"We may not have it all together, but together, we have it all."
At Blockbuster Videos' peak, the movie rental chain had 9,000 stores and raked in $6 billion in annual revenue. In the late 1990s, Blockbuster passed on the chance to buy Netflix for $50 million, a company now worth over $120 billion.
Morning Brew, November 2, 2022
Thanks to falling home prices, a whopping $1.37 trillion in mortgage holder equity vanished in the third quarter of this year.
Americans are moving to Mexico at the fastest pace on record, with permits to temporarily live in the country surging 85% from the year before Covid.
“Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.”
John F. Kennedy
November 21, 2022
The auction of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s art collection brought in a record $1.6 billion. Despite Allen being a discerning art collector, he recorded an average rate of just 6.2% over 18 years for the pieces he previously bought at auction.
Morning Brew, November 12, 2022
Since 1950, the average return for the S&P 500 in the 12 months after a midterm election is 15%, surprisingly with no down years. Stocks performed better in the six months following the election than in the six months preceding it 17 out of 19 times. And a split government has historically produced a roughly 13% annual return.
The smorgasbord of software needed to do any given task can make it feel like we are working multiple jobs at once. A study in Harvard Business Review suggests workers are switching from app to app and website to website, nearly 1,200 times a day – that amounts to a total of 9% of their annual time at work.
“Good ideas carried to wretched excess, become bad ideas.”
Charlie Munger
Natural gas stockpiles in European Union member states are now 95% full. Russia provided about 40% of Europe’s gas before it invaded Ukraine and supplies were cut off, but an unusually warm autumn and stepped-up imports of liquefied natural gas have created a temporary glut, with prices dropping 40% since August.
The Economist, November 3, 2022
When Pennsylvania’s Senator-elect John Fetterman heads to Capitol Hill in January, exactly 10% of the Senate will have the first name Jon or John.
Washington Post, November 11, 2022
"Thanksgiving is a time to count your blessings, one by one, as each relative goes home."
Melanie White
November 14, 2022
With each passing Veterans Day, there are fewer veterans in America for other Americans to thank. The number of living Americans who had served in the military fell to 16.5 million last year from 26.4 million in 2000. This shrinkage is good in one important respect — it’s a sign that the United States, while not fully at peace, has needed fewer troops in recent decades than in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The current number of active-duty troops, at 1.4 million, is little more than a tenth of the peak of 12.1 million in 1945.
The New York Times, November 11, 2022
Going back to 1930, the S&P 500 climbed an average of 6.3% in the three months following the midterm elections. In fact, the last time the index wasn’t higher six months after voting was in 1947.
The latest World Container Index – a key benchmark for container prices – has fallen again to $2,773 per 40-foot container. That’s 73% lower than the peak rate in September of last year.
Recession averted: The Houston Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies to win the World Series, pushing the most reliable recession indicator we have (a Philly-based team won in 1929, 1930, 1980, and 2008) off for at least a year.
Morning Brew, November 7, 2022
Renewable energy prices have plummeted since 2010 – solar power more than 85% and wind more than 55% - and that affordability has made them a viable alternative to fossil fuels.
AT&T will end its operator service in 21 states as their landline operations now only have 8.5 million customers. At peak, 350,000 people were employed as operators by U.S. telecoms, a figure that today stands at just 550.
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
Gloria Steinem
November 7, 2022
Over the last 3 years, both the U.S. Money Supply (M2) and U.S. home prices have increased by 43%. Over the past 6 months, the U.S. Money Supply has decreased by 1.1%. the largest decline over a 6-month period on record.
Barron’s October 29, 20022 and Compound, October 31, 2022
This is the worst year for U.S. Treasuries since the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788.
The Financial Post, June 30, 20022
In August 2020, when oil prices were in the dumps, Exxon was booted from the DOW to make way for a software company. Now, as oil prices have skyrocketed and inflation stalks the globe, energy is eating software’s lunch. The S&P’s energy sector is up more than 61% YTD while the tech sector is down -29% YTD.
Morning Brew, October 28, 2022
Today, 46% of Americans have a tattoo.
In 2020, consumers had about $4.8 trillion in personal savings. Today, that is down to roughly $680 billion.
From 1937 until 1940, the Social Security Administration made lump-sum payments, believing people would not live long enough for monthly distributions. In January 1937, Ernest Ackerman became the first person in the U.S. to receive a Social Security benefit – a lump sum of 17 cents.
The Baseball Writers of America vote for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame and when Babe Ruth’s name first came up, eleven of them voted no.
October 31, 2022
The backlog of container ships waiting to be offloaded in Southern California reached 109 in January of last year but more recently has dropped below 10. Meanwhile, the cost of shipping a container from China to the United States has fallen below $4,000 compared to last year’s high of around $20,000.
MarketPlace, September 29, 2022
In the 1960s, more than a third of older Americans lived in poverty. With the aid of federal programs like Medicare to help the elderly, the situation improved significantly. By 2020, the figure had fallen to 9.5%. But last year, even as the poverty rate sank for everyone else, it rose among seniors to 10.7%.
New York Times, October 17, 2022
Gas prices fell at the fastest rate in over a decade this summer, with average prices down by $1.15 per gallon since their peak in June and just about 30 cents above levels on February 24, when the war in Ukraine began.
When taxes on Social Security benefits were first introduced in 1983, just 8% of eligible families paid taxes on benefits. In 2021, that number has climbed to an estimated 56%.
A new report out of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimated the aggregate impact of work from home to be 60 million reclaimed hours every day that otherwise would have been spent on commuting.
Today, diet-related deaths outrank deaths from smoking with nearly 900 deaths a day linked to poor diet.
The boat used as the S.S. Minnow in Gilligan’s Island was a 1964 Wheeler with a cruising speed of 12 knots- which means they couldn’t have traveled more than 41.5 miles. Now I’m starting to doubt if the show was even real.
iFunny
October 24, 2022
A $1 shift in the price of oil represents a 2.4 cents a gallon shift in the price of gas.
Traditional IPOs have only priced 50 deals year-to-date in 2022, a drop of -81.3% from their 2021 Q1 through Q3 total of 268 traditional IPOs priced.
Americans spend more on lottery tickets annually than they spend on video streaming services, concert tickets, books, and movie tickets combined.
The New Yorker, October 17, 2022
“Baseball is the only sport I know where the defense controls the ball.”
Ken Harrelson, Sports Illustrated, September 1976
Irishman Damian Browne arrived in his native Galway after rowing across the Atlantic from New York in 112 days. “It's nice to be alive,” said Browne, 42, who capsized three times during the 3,450-mile voyage, and cannot swim.
The New York Times, October 6, 2022
On October 20th, for only the 27th time ever, all “Big Four” North American sports leagues were in action on the same day. There was a 16-year period (1985-2001) without a single Sports Equinox.
Axios Sports, October 20, 2022
“They throw you a round ball and give you a round bat and tell you to hit it squarely.”
Ted Williams
October 17, 2022
When customers are actively disengaged and don’t believe you deliver on your promises, the result is an average 19% decline in business outcomes.
The population of industrial robots in the world has reached an all-time high of 3.5 million, which exceeds the population of every U.S. city excluding New York and Los Angeles.
The Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2022
401(k) plans hold a whopping $7.7 trillion in retirement savings.
“This year, the league-wide MLB batting average is down to .243, the lowest since 1968. One of the things believed to be causing this includes the higher velocity of pitches – there were 3,356 pitches that came in over 100 miles per hour, up from 1,829 in 2021 and 1,056 in 2019.
The new DNA sequencing machine made by Illumina, which costs roughly $1 million, can now sequence a human genome for less than $240. That work used to cost $100 million just 21 years ago.
Fewer than half of people can’t name the three branches of government and 25% can’t name one.
“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”
Orson Wells
October 10, 2022
The average length of a bear market is 289 days or about 9.6 months. That’s significantly shorter than the average length of a bull market, which is 991 days or 2.7 years.
We’ve seen a significant drawdown in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has moved down to its lowest level since 1984.
A 1952 Micky Mantle rookie baseball card in mint-plus condition sold for a record $12.6 million, becoming the most valuable piece of sports memorabilia to be sold at auction. The previous owner bought the card in 1991 for $50,000, for an annualized return of 19.52%.
The New York Times, August 28, 2022
Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko has come up with a foolproof way to curb rampant inflation: banning inflation. His prohibition on all consumer price increases took immediate effect last Thursday. It's not the first time the Putin ally has made a radical proposal: He also suggested a shot of vodka a day to keep Covid at bay.
On October 4th of 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar to replace the Julian calendar which wasn’t a perfect measurement of a year, and the spring equinox had drifted from March 21 to March 11. To get things back on schedule, the Gregorian calendar eliminated 10 days that October, so the people of 1582 went to bed on the 4th of October and woke up the next day on October 15th.
The world’s biggest trial of a four-day work week, involving 70 firms giving 3,300 employees full pay for 80% of their hours, just reached its halfway point. 46% of firms say overall productivity has improved, and more than eight in ten say it works so well they’re going to keep on going once the trial ends.
When asked what he was going to do with his signing bonus, baseball great Tug McGraw said, "I'll spend ninety percent on good times, women, and Irish Whiskey. The other ten percent - I'll probably waste."
October3, 2022
As a newly elected member of congress in 2013, now-Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was one of the 67 House Republicans who voted against a $9.7 billion assistance package for the New York and New Jersey victims of Hurricane Sandy. On Wednesday DeSantis asked President Biden to cover the costs of debris removal and emergency protective service for the first 60 days after the hurricane. He said, “We all need to work together, regardless of party lines.”
Letters from an American, September 29, 2022
During the first Volcker recession in 1980, the Fed quickly slashed the fed funds by more than ten percentage points: That rate averaged 18.8% from March 26 to April 20 but fell to only 8.6% by early June. The fed funds rate quickly increased to 19.1% when President Reagan took office in January 1981. Meanwhile, the fed funds rate was reduced from the 19.1% peak to 8.5% by February 1983, the second 10‐point rate cut.
Cato Institute, August 30, 2022
The top 10% of Americans have lost over $8 trillion in stock market wealth this year. The top 1% has lost over $5 trillion and the bottom 50% have lost about $70 billion.
"Bear markets will either scare you out or wear you out.”
Mark Zinder
One review of more than 22 studies found that the difference in longevity at the point of retirement between someone who says they’re in poor health versus someone who says they are in excellent health is about five years.
The Bloomberg Commodities Index – which tracks more than 20 commodity futures including energy, metals, and livestock – has declined 19% since this year's most recent high reached on June 9.
"When a bear market is over, the initial uptick is met with disbelief, not acceptance."
Mark Zinder
September 26, 2022
From 2013 to 2018, Chinese firms were net buyers of $52 billion in U.S. commercial real estate, focused particularly on Manhattan. Lately, though, they’ve been bailing out of the market at a remarkable pace, selling off $23.6 billion of U.S. commercial properties since 2019.
The Wall Street Journal, September 20, 2022
Last year, for the first time, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund paid out more than it took in.
There are now 62.5 million millionaires in the world and nearly 40% of the planet’s millionaires live in the U.S. There were 2.5 million new millionaires in the U.S. in 2021 alone, which accounted for half of the world’s new millionaires last year which is the largest increase in millionaire numbers recorded for any country in any year this century.
The Daily Beast, September 20, 2022
“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.”
Yogi Berra
When customers are actively disengaged and don’t believe you deliver on your promises, the result is a 19% decline in business outcomes.
Every day, roughly 750 older adults are hospitalized due to side effects from one or more medications.
President Vladimir Putin spoke at the Moscow opening of a new giant Ferris wheel in Moscow two weeks ago. Russian state media reported, "At an overall height of 140 meters, the VDNKh's open revolving observation wheel is the tallest in Europe.” It broke down just one day later.
Business Insider, September 14, 2022
September 19, 2022
Analysis by the Peterson Institute suggests that eliminating tariffs on Chinese imports, which were imposed in 2018, would cut the CPI by 1.3 percentage points from the annual U.S. inflation rate.
Barron’s, September 7, 2022
Conventional wisdom says you should aim to buy a house that costs three times your income. But a new study found that last quarter, home prices were 6.5 times what the typical first-time homebuyer makes.
MarketPlace, September 7, 2022
Avis slapped an $8,000 ($6,200 US) surcharge on a Canadian woman, claiming she drove a rental car 22,369 miles in three days - nearly the circumference of the Earth. After an epic runaround, Avis later corrected their mistake and also apologized.
You now must be at least 21 years old to buy canned whipped cream in New York.
More than 70 Chinese cities have been placed under full or partial Covid lockdowns since late August, impacting more than 300 million people, as local authorities rush to stamp out infections at all costs.
More rats have been spotted in New York City in 2022 than at any point in the last decade. Many blame outdoor dining for the surging rat population, saying the sidewalk offers free food which worsens the problem.
New York Daily News, August 3, 2022
“In addition to doing pest control, I’m also an ordained minister. I have a doctorate in theology, so I pray for God’s creatures on Sunday and kill them on Monday, and this has created a dilemma for myself.”
Joel Grassi, partner at BHB Pest Elimination
September 12, 2022
The top 20% of U.S. households account for nearly 40% of all consumer spending or 28% of gross domestic product.
A recent survey found that 36% of Americans who make more than $200k live paycheck to paycheck.
The city of Hoboken, N.J., hasn’t had a traffic death in four years.
By checking receipts at the door, Costco’s shrinkage (loss to theft) represents just 0.11% to 0.12% of sales. In comparison, the retail industry average is in the 1% - 2% range. The money Costco saves in shrinkage compared to a typical retailer is $2.85 billion!
The value of the entire cryptocurrency market has fallen below $1 trillion as digital coins across the board have seen a selloff wiping out nearly $2 trillion of their value since its peak in November.
In measuring the collapse of local news, there is arguably no more important metric than the number of local reporters. Though precise numbers are hard to come by, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports an astounding 57% decline in newsroom employees since 2004.
Columbia Journal Review, February 25, 2022
“It's always a risk to speak to the press: They are likely to report what you say.”
Hubert Humphrey
September 5, 2022
The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report on the subject of minimum wage finds that just 1.5% of all hourly paid workers are making the minimum wage or less.
In 17 of the 19 midterms since 1946, the market performed better in the six months following an election than it did in the six months leading up to it.
Onward -Charles Schwab, Fall 2022
China’s imports of Malaysian crude oil hit 791,000 barrels a day in July of this year, which is weird because the current total amount of oil that Malaysia produces a day is under 600,000 barrels per day.
NumlockNews, September 1, 2022
For the first time on record, more people in the U.S. say they smoke marijuana than cigarettes.
NPR, August 30, 2022.
“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
Samuel Johnson
The Atlantic hurricane season has been unusually quiet so far, with not a single hurricane. There has not even been a named storm since July 2, 2021, a respite that last occurred in 1982.
Axios, August 26, 2022
Who was the world's first financier? Noah. Why? Because he was able to float a company when the rest of the world was in liquidation.
August 29, 2022
Wikipedia has banned some users from making edits on its “recession” page as people are feuding over the term’s proper definition.
As inflation rises, concerns about theft are increasing, too — and stores are opting for more security to address the issue. Spam is the latest item to be locked up in an anti-theft case at a Duane Reade location in New York City.
Workers who recently switched jobs received wage increases of 6.7% over the last year vs. 4.9% for those who stayed at their jobs. With data going back to 1997, this is the widest gap ever seen.
“It’s very hard to find someone who’s successful and dislikes what they do. Except if they’re a lawyer.”
Malcolm Gladwell
Only 20% of advisors expect returns on investment of 10% or more per year. Investors, in contrast, are very optimistic with 59% expecting returns of 10% or more, and 40% expecting returns of more than 25%.
Financial Advisor IQ, August 23, 2022
Wartime casualties are a state secret in Russia, and revealing them is punishable by up to seven years in prison.
Lavern Spicer, a Republican congressional candidate from Florida, claimed that “there are no pronouns in the Constitution.” Critics pointed out that there are dozens of pronouns in the Constitution, including its first word, “We.”
Outfrontnagazine, August 8, 2022
August 22, 2022
According to a July poll, nearly two-thirds of voters (65%) believe the U.S. is in a recession right now. Interestingly, according to the NBER, only 51% of those polled in March 2020 thought the U.S. was in a recession when the country was actually in one.
Last year, the FBI released a report saying there are now 4,000 ransomware attacks every day (compared to seven bank robberies a day), and that online perpetrators stole $14 billion in Bitcoin in 2021 alone (traditional bank robbers, by comparison, only got away with a couple of hundred million).
Russia’s working-age population has been declining since 2010 so recently the Russian government announced it is reviving the Soviet-era honorary title “Mother Heroine” for women who have 10 or more children. Russia’s hero medal and a lump sum of 1 million rubles ($16,000 US) will be received when the 10th child turns one, if all have survived.
“Depending on where we go from here, human intelligence may be the stupidest thing that has ever happened.”
Justin Gregg
In July of this year, 17.5% of deals made with builders on a new-construction home fell through, compared with 8% in April and 7.5% in July 2021. Roughly 63,000 contracts on existing homes also fell apart in July, representing about 16% of all homes that went under contract.
Montana has become the first state to approve 3D-printed walls as an equivalent replacement for walls made from concrete masonry units. A finished home printed with an Apis Cor printer can cost up to 30% less than a traditionally built concrete block or wood-framed house.
Additive Report, August 18, 2022
Officials made an error that awarded a new homebuyer in Sparks, Nevada, the title to 87 additional properties. Officials asked the buyer to transfer the titles back, but the buyer responded with a “no comment” and a smiley-face emoji.
Yahoo!finance, August 10, 2022
August 15, 2022
The international telephone code for Russia is 007.
On January 8, 1835, President Andrew Jackson achieved his goal of entirely paying off the United States’ national debt. It was the only time in U.S. history that the national debt stood at zero, and it precipitated one of the worst financial crises in American history.
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”
Oscar Wilde
The overall share of Americans who are either very comfortable (13%) or somewhat comfortable (29%) with their emergency savings dropped to 42% in June from 54% two years ago.
“When you are good at something, you’ll tell everyone. When you’re great at something, they’ll tell you."
Greenland’s melting ice is the top contributor to global sea level rise. The uptick in ice loss that occurred during the July 15-17 period sent enough water careening off the ice sheet to fill 2.4 million Olympic-sized swimming pools. Put another way, it was the equivalent of covering all of West Virginia in four inches of water per day, for a total depth of one foot.
“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”
August 8, 2022
Over the 20-year period ending December 31, 2021, the S&P 500 returned an annualized 9.52%. Remove the 10 best days from that period, and the return drops to 5.33%. Over that period, seven of the market’s best days occurred two weeks after one of the 10 worst days.
The backlog of vessels waiting outside Los Angeles has fallen from a record high of 109 to 20 and the port moved 876,611 twenty-foot equivalent units in June in its best record in over 100 years.
Hellenic Shipping News, July 25, 2022
Players have collectively spent more than 25 billion hours (2.85 million years) playing “Call of Duty.” Longer than the course of human existence.
“Save your money in peacetime so you can buy more during war.”
Warren Buffett
A new study found that at age 26 fully 30% of Americans live in the same census tract they lived in when they were 16, and given how small most census tracts are, that means pretty much the same neighborhood of 1,200 to 8,000 people. Expanding out just a bit more, 58% of 26-year-old Americans live within 10 miles of where they were when they were 16, and 80% live within 100 miles.
The pandemic led to a surge in both online shopping and fake reviews- according to one estimate, during the 2020 holiday shopping season, about 42% of the reviews on Amazon were fake.
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynihan 1927-2003
August 1, 2022
From 1973 to 2021, companies that paid quarterly dividends furnished annual returns of 9.6% a year, crushing nonpayers’ record of 4.8%.
Private-sector payrolls have replaced all 21 million jobs that were lost in the spring of 2020.
From 2006 to 2020, NASA paid Russia an average of $56 million a seat to take 71 astronauts to the International Space Station. The arrangement with Russia ended last year.
The New York Times, July 15, 2022
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Since 1990, the United States supply of billionaires has increased from 66 to more than 700. In that time, the number of truly giant yachts – those longer than 250 feet – has climbed from less than 10 to more than 170.
The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is worth less today than at any point since February 1956. Then, the minimum stood at 75 cents per hour or $7.19 in today’s dollars.
A recent survey found that 49.2% of respondents at Japanese companies said the company employs “old guys who do not work.” When asked what the “non-working old guys” do at work, 49.7% said “many breaks for smoking and eating” and 47.7% said “staring off into space.”
July 25, 2022
China’s holdings of U.S. debt has fallen below $1 trillion for the first time in 12 years. Japan, with $1.2 trillion, is now the leading holder of U.S. Treasuries.
Historical data shows a new bull market typically starts three months after the end of the present bear market and jumps an average of 40% in the 12 months after the bear market bottoms.
As the cost of renewable energy continues to plunge, the amount of U.S. electricity generated by wind, solar, and hydroelectric dams hit a record high of 28% this past April.
Americans’ confidence in two facets of the news – newspaper and television news – has fallen to all-time low points, with only Congress gathering less confidence from the public. Today, just 16% of U.S. adults now say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers and 11% in television news.
Currently, only 23% of Americans aged 17 to 24 would be considered qualified to serve the U.S. military without a waiver regarding disqualifications due to obesity, drug use, or criminal records.
Bottlenose dolphins are appearing in the waters off New York City, which are cleaner than they have been since the Civil War.
The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2022
A flight attendant mistook the most decorated gymnast in U.S. history as a child and offered the 4-foot-8, seven-time gold medalist, Simone Biles, a coloring book after boarding the flight. The other flight attendant offered her a mimosa, so “we’re in the clear” Biles said.
July 18, 2022
In 2020, the world’s GDP was $88 trillion and in 2021, $94 trillion. According to the latest projections, the IMF expects the global economy to reach nearly $104 trillion in nominal value by the end of 2022.
VisualCapitalist, July 12, 2022
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the long-run neutral rate at which it neither stimulates nor restricts the economy is in the “mid-2s.” This means that by September, the Fed will be in a position to restrain the economy.
It is estimated that the average adult makes more than 35,000 decisions a day.
“Don’t regret past mistakes. All your decisions, good or bad, have led you to where you are today. Disregard this if you are in prison.”
Anonymous
Understanding the ins and outs of Social Security’s many rules around claims will help you make the best decisions when accessing retirement benefits. A recent poll given to people near or already in retirement shows that many have some brushing up to do on the program’s rules. Most did poorly: Almost two-thirds, 65%, either failed or got a D grade. Meanwhile, 18% of respondents earned a C, while 12% got a B and 6% earned an A. Just 1% of respondents got a perfect score.
The Great Resignation is seeping into the corner office, with 70% of C-level executives telling pollsters that they seriously might resign for a job that better supports their well-being. 57% of employees surveyed said they were fed up enough to quit too.
“Last week I found myself wondering why I don’t buy more piñatas, because right now I’d love to beat the holy crap out of something and then sit in the grass and eat candy.”
Susan Blankston
July 11, 2022
Foreign shipments worth less than $800 are not counted in the U.S. trade deficit. One economist estimates that those shipments, largely from China, now add up to $112 billion of goods a year.
The Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2022
The once log-jammed ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have largely cleared. In January there were 109 container ships backed up near the ports. In June, we were back down to 16 containerships in queue, one at anchor, and 15 just outside the Safety and Air Quality Area introduced in November.
In a survey taken last year, advisors’ clients said they expected long-term real returns of 17.5% per year – numbers that would put them in the top tier of legendary hedge fund managers.
“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”
Jackie Gleason
An anonymous bidder paid a record $19 million for a private lunch with investor Warren Buffett. The bidding started at $25,000 for the last year of Buffett’s annual “power lunch,” which has raised over $53 million for charity. The previous winner, cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, paid $4.5 million.
BusinessInsider, June 18, 2022
If it were totally financed through a payroll tax, where half is paid by workers and half by employers, it would take a 3.5% increase to make social security solvent.
“There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists.”
Yosemite National Park Ranger
July 4, 2022
The worst performing stock in the S&P 500 this year, Netflix (-70%), is still the best performer over the last 15 years with a 6,271% gain.
If you’re still waiting for a tax refund, there’s a silver lining: it may be accruing interest, and the rate jumps to 5% from 4% on July 1. The kicker: it’s taxable.
Calvin Coolidge was the only president born on July 4th, however, three presidents have died on the fourth of July: Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on July 4, 1826, and in 1831, just five years later, James Monroe became the third US president to die on that day.
How Stuff Works, June 30, 2022
“Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation from extinction.”
Ronald Reagan
A 2017 study found that 60% of college graduates don’t know any of the steps necessary to ratify a constitutional amendment. 50% don’t know how long the terms of representatives and senators are, 40% didn’t know that Congress has the power to declare war, 43% of Americans don’t know that the First Amendment gives them the right to freedom of speech and a full third can’t identify a single right it gives them.
National Review March 21, 2017
Recent survey respondents who are still working, with a median age of 60, have average savings of around $112,000. One-quarter of those surveyed, and 30% of millennials, said they were planning to rely on “cryptocurrencies” to finance some of their retirement.
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
-Abraham Lincoln
June 27, 2022
Since 1926, when dividends are factored in, the S&P has risen 72% of the time year-over-year. More than half the time (57%), the S&P posts gains of 10% or more.
The best-performing currency this year is the Russian Ruble. Strange but true. The ruble is up about 35% in 2022 and is at its strongest level vs the US dollar since 2015.
Berkshire Hathaway snapped up $51 billion in stocks in the first quarter of 2022, more than any other three-month period in its history. Warren Buffett said, “Occasionally, Berkshire gets a chance to do something, and it’s not because we’re smart. It’s because we are sane.”
Airlines canceled 793,018 flights in North America in the first 23 weeks of the year, up 21% from the same period in pre-pandemic 2019.
THE Ohio State University won its fight to trademark the word “THE.” The patent office initially denied the application, calling the word “merely decorative.” THE university fought back and won after three years.
Since WWII, those who bought stocks the day the S&P 500 entered a bear market have made an average of 22.7% over the 12 months following their stock purchases.
“When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.’”
President Theodore Roosevelt
June 20, 2022
Exxon Mobile has gained 156% since it was removed from the DOW in August 2020 versus a 30% decline for Salesforce which was added to the index. Had the Dow Jones Industrial Average skipped its 2020 reshuffle, the index would have beat its current performance by about 5.6% since then, and about 1.6% this year.
Business Insider, June 6, 2022
Registrations for new electric vehicles skyrocketed 60% in the first three months of 2022 even as the overall new car registrations were down 18%. Tesla vehicles represented 59% of new registrations with 113,882. Kia came in a distant second with 8,450.
In 2021, Covid killed more police officers in the line of duty than any other single cause. Last year was the deadliest for officers in 90 years, with 458 deaths; 301 of those were from Covid.
The New York Times, January 12, 2022
“The more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it.”
David Graeber
About 100 Americans die on average every day from gun violence. In comparison, President Zelensky estimates that currently, 60 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers are dying daily in the war.
The New York Times, June 3, 2022 and USA Today, May 4, 2022
New Zealand announced a plan this week to counter climate change by taxing methane-filled cow and sheep burps. Emissions from cows alone make up about 40% of greenhouse gases globally and in New Zealand, cows and sheep outnumber people 7:1.
Nancy Brophy, an Oregon-based romance novelist, and author of the 2011 essay “How to Murder Your Husband,” was found guilty last month of murdering her husband.
June 13, 2022
More than one in three Americans who earn at least $250,000, say they live paycheck to paycheck. More than 40% of those earning at least $100,000 say the same.
The amount of money mortgage holders could pull out of their homes while keeping a 20% equity cushion rose by an unprecedented $1.2 trillion in the first quarter of 2022. Total tappable equity stood at $11 trillion, or two times the previous peak in 2006. That works out to an average of about $207,000 per homeowner.
A survey of more than 500 food delivery drivers found that most of them judge us on what we buy, many have been accused of stealing packages, and 80% say they've eaten some of the food they're delivering.
Electric vehicles of all types are displacing about 1.5 million barrels of oil a day worldwide. Evannex, May 30, 2022
A 100-year-old Florida woman says a federal agency refuses to believe she is alive. Betty Ashley says her checks from her late husband’s annuity, who served as a U.S. Postmaster, stopped last year and efforts to reinstate them – including a photo of herself holding a recent newspaper – have been unsuccessful. Ashley’s daughter says federal officials told her: “She’s 100 years old. Why would we think she is alive?”
Japan has such a punctual culture that if a train is delayed five minutes or longer, you are handed a delay certificate at the arriving station to verify for your teacher or boss why you were late.
“It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance.”
Ronald Reagan
June 6, 2022
In 2021, the House Energy and Commerce Committee estimated that CO2 emissions from digital mining for bitcoin and Ethereum were equivalent to the tailpipe emissions from more than 15.5 million gasoline-powered cars on the road every year. Other estimates put this figure much higher.
Despite spanning five geographical time zones, China follows a single standard time across the country. So if you were to cross into Afghanistan from Western China through the Wakhjir Pass, you’d be going 3.5 hours back in time in a matter of seconds. It’s the sharpest time change of any international border.
New home sales plunged in April, falling 16.6% from March. New home sales, which make up more than 10% of all U.S. home sales, are tracked when contracts are signed while existing home sales are tracked when contracts close. That makes new-home sales a leading indicator of where the market is headed.
The average four-year-old child laughs 300 times a day. By contrast, it takes more than two months for the average 40-year-old adult to laugh that many times.
In its first week of release, Harry Styles’ new album Harry’s House made an estimated $7.26 million in sales in the United States, but the really fascinating thing is how it made it. According to Billboard, $4.49 million was from 182,000 vinyl record sales, which is the highest weekly volume of records sold since modern-era sales tracking began in 1991.
On a typical day in the United States, more people ride on New York City’s subway than fly in airplanes.
“Time heals all wounds, right up to the moment it kills you.”
Herbie Cohen
May 30, 2022
“War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.” Ambrose Bierce
Since 1946, stock market declines of 10-20% have happened 29 times, 20%-40% nine times, and 40% or more three times. Two takeaways: First, most stock market pullbacks above 20% have been associated with recessions (there have been 12 since 1946). Second, for long-term investors, severe pullbacks of 20%-40% are rare or don’t last very long – only 14 months.
Real income for the bottom 50% rose a stunning 11.7% in 2021.
This has been the worst year for the bond market since 1842. Not since the bottom of the pre-Civil War depression has the broad bond market performed worse in a complete year than what happened so far in 2022.
The Wall Street Journal, May 6, 2022
The IRS budget declined by 20% since 2010, even as the number of taxpayers increased by 19%.
The boxy Soviet-era car brand, the “Moskvitch,” could be making a comeback in Russia. Moscow said it planned to nationalize the factory belonging to the French carmaker Renault following its exit from the country. The development was “met with ridicule by Russians with long memories.” The Moskvitch was one of the Soviet Union’s most popular car brands but it was not known for its quality.
A fellow in Moscow bought a new car. The dealer said, "Congratulations. Come back 10 years from today and you can get your car." The man asked, "When should I come back? In the morning or the afternoon?" The dealer was puzzled. "After 10 years, what difference does it make when you come in?" The man said, "Because the plumber is coming in the morning." Ronald Reagan
Click here to watch President Reagan deliver this joke.
May 23, 2022
“The Davos World Economic Forum: Where Billionaires, tell Millionaires how the middle class feels.”
Jamie Dimon
The number of people receiving unemployment benefits fell in early May to the lowest level since December 1969.
The Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2022
The world’s richest 500 people have lost more than $1 trillion in net worth this year.
“Let me be surrounded by luxury; I can do without the rest.”
Oscar Wilde
California anticipates a budget surplus of $97.5 billion, a record for California or any other state. The surplus is bigger than the entire 2020 spending of every state except New York and Texas and was driven by taxes on capital gains, which reached their highest share of tax collections since 1999, before the dot-com crash.
There is so much artificial light in the United States that after the 1994 Northbridge earthquake knocked out power, some concerned residents of Los Angeles called the police to report a "giant, silvery cloud" in the sky above them. What they were really seeing -- for their first time -- was the Milky Way.
"When a bear market is over, the initial uptick is met with disbelief, not acceptance.”
Mark Zinder
May 9, 2022
For many decades, Western living standards have been boosted by a massive “peace dividend.” For example, U.S. defense spending fell from 11.1% in 1967, during the Viet Nam War, to 6.9% of GDP in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, to just over 3.5% of GDP today. If the U.S. defense spending as a share of GDP was still at the Viet Nam-era level, defense outlays in 2021 would have been $1.5 trillion higher- more than the government spent on Social Security last year. Project Syndicate, March 2, 2022
Through 2045, baby boomers and the silent generation are projected to pass on $84.4 trillion to the next generation. Of that total, $11.9 trillion is headed to charities while the remaining $72.6 trillion is going to heirs.
Financial Advisor IQ, January 21, 2022
College graduates are overestimating their starting salaries by a whopping $50,000. Undergraduate students across all majors and institutions overestimated their starting salaries by 88%. Ten years into their careers, students anticipate making more than $200,000, well above the average mid-career salary of $132,497.
If the state of California was itself a country, it would be the world’s fifth-largest economy in the world, and for 15 minutes on April 30, 2022, 100% of the state was powered by clean energy.
Russia's $1.7 trillion economy is one-tenth the size of the European Union's, and its $62 billion military budget is just 8% of America's.
Project Syndicate, March 17, 2022
The phrase “menu costs” is often used by economists to describe how e-commerce has enabled inflation – if a restaurant wants to raise its prices, it needs to reprint all of its menus, often at significant expense. If however, the restaurant menu is a QR code, raising prices is just a matter of changing numbers on a single web page.
“When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.”
Mark Twain
May 2, 2022
This is the oldest senate in history, with an average age of 64. A recent poll found that a clear majority of Americans want an age limit of 70 for elected officials. If that limit were brought in now, it would force 71% of current senators to retire.
Global gross domestic product in 1900 was $3.4 trillion. In 2020 that figure was $112.7 trillion. During the same 120-year period, the world population grew from 1.6 billion to 7.8 billion. Less than five times as many people produced more than 33 times as much output.
The Wall Street Journal, April 22, 2022
“Every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians. We call them children.”
Hannah Arendt
A government watchdog report found private Medicare plans routinely rejected claims that should have been paid and denied services that reviewers found to be medically necessary. The report discovered private Medicare plans denied 18% of claims allowed under Medicare coverage rules and turned down 13% of authorizations for medical services that Medicare would have allowed.
A new survey found that 32% of U.S. adults favored scientists attempting to bring back extinct animals. Of those, 39% favored giving the Dodo another chance, 20% the Saber-tooth tiger, and 10% backed reviving the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Growing abuse from players and parents has led to a widespread exodus of youth sports umpires and referees, with shortages causing scores of canceled games and tournaments. From 2018 to 2021 an estimated 50,000 high school referees quit, after being followed to their cars, attacked by players on the field, and struck by objects thrown by spectators.
The New York Times, April 21, 2022
Judith Love Cohen, a NASA engineer who helped create the Abort-Guidance System which rescued the Apollo 13 astronauts, took a printout of a problem she was working on to a hospital the day she went into labor. She finished the problem, let her boss know, then gave birth to the actor Jack Black.
April 25, 2022
Of the 14 S&P 500 declines of 19% or more since 1960, 10 made their lows in midterm election years.
As of March 22, the United States strategic oil reserves held 568 million barrels of oil with the average price of $29 being paid per barrel. It only takes 13 days to start pumping the oil out and once started, 4.4 million barrels can be removed a day.
For the first time in three decades, U.S. household cash now exceeds household debt. While negative net debt is a sign of comfort, there have been seven recessions between the early 1950s and early 1980s when it was also negative.
Americans watched enough video streaming content last year to fill nearly 15 million years of time.
Last year was the most profitable year for American corporations since 1950 with profits for U.S. businesses surging by 35%.
On March 29, for the first time on record, wind was the second-largest source of electricity generation in the United States. All told, wind turbines produced 2,017 gigawatt-hours of electricity, accounting for 19% of that day's production.
In a 1975 Sports Illustrated magazine interview, Philly’s relief pitcher Tug McGraw was asked what he was going to do with his signing bonus, and he responded, “Ninety percent I’ll spend on good times, women, and Irish Whiskey. The other ten percent I’ll probably waste!”
April 18, 2022
Over the course of their lifetime, the average American will pay $525,037 in taxes. Nearly two-thirds of the total, or roughly $340,000, comes from taxes on earnings, with the rest made up of sales, property, and automobile taxes.
Next month begins the half-year ahead of the midterm elections, the weakest six months for stocks in the presidential cycle. Looking back to 1926, the total return of the S&P 500 index has averaged just 2.2% from the months May to October in the second year of a presidency. The subsequent November-April period, stretching into the third year of a president’s term, was far away the best, averaging a 13.9% return.
Twenty-one percent of American workers took a new job in the past 12 months. Of the recent job-switchers, 40% are already actively looking for another job.
April 15th has not always been the filing deadline. March 1st was the date specified by Congress in 1913, after the passage of the 16th amendment. In 1918 Congress set the date to March 15th, where it remained until the tax overhaul of 1954, when the date was again moved to April 15th.
Over the course of 192,000 years, demographers estimated that 109 billion people have lived and died on earth. If you add that number to the people alive today, we get 117 billion humans that have ever lived. That means that 7% of all humans who have ever lived are alive today. World Economic Forum, April 4, 2022
The annual survey of financial literacy found that adults correctly answered only one-half of the 28 questions. Perhaps more disturbing, 23% couldn’t correctly answer more than seven of the questions correctly.
InvestmentNews, April 13, 2022
"You don't pay taxes - they take taxes!"
Chris Rock
April 11, 2022
A “lightly used” car is now 1.3%, or $533, more expensive than its new counterpart. A one-year-old Mercedes Benz G-class luxury SUV is almost 36% more than new, commanding a staggering $62,705 premium over the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. Buying a used Chevrolet Corvette will cost you $16,645, or 20%, over a new one.
In 2021, the U.S. population grew at the slowest pace in history. It didn’t just fade away: It slipped, and slipped, and then fell off a cliff. The 2010s were already demographically stagnant; every year from 2011 to 2017, the U.S. grew by only 2 million people. In 2020, the U.S. grew by just 1.1 million. Last year, we added only 393,000 people.
“We never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.”
Billie Holiday
Stock buybacks from S&P 500 companies are expected to pass $1 trillion this year, after hitting a record $882 billion in 2021. Today, companies themselves are the largest buyers of stocks in the U.S markets.
On average, one in three NFT collections have essentially expired, with little or no trading activity. Another third are trading below the amount it cost issuers to mint the tokens.
IRS Publication 17 notes “Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income” declarations. Similarly, it says, “If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless you return it to its rightful owner in the same year.”
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”
Oscar Wilde
April 4, 2022
Year three of bull markets tend to be a little tamer, with the larger gains happening in years one and two. Of the 11 bull markets since WW II, three of them ended during year three, while the ones that didn’t end, saw an average gain of only 5.2%.
At first glance, the 431,000 jobs added in March look like a deceleration from the job growth totals for January and February- 504,000 and 750,000 jobs added respectively. However, employers still added more jobs in March of 2022 than all but one month of the decade-long expansion during the 2010s.
"Isn't it appropriate that the month when taxes are due begins with April Fool’s Day and ends with cries of 'May Day!'?" Unknown
Last year, for the first time on record, homeowners earned more from the increase in home values than income from their jobs. The typical U.S. home increased by $52,667 in value while the median full-time worker earned $50,000 before taxes.
The Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2022
In 2017, one in four Russians believed the sun traveled around the earth.
The Moscow Times, March 31, 2017
In 2020, among adults younger than 65, alcohol-related deaths outnumbered COVID-19 deaths.
The New York Times, March 22, 2022
“Tetris taught me that if you fit in, you disappear.”
Unknown
March 28, 2022
The first Academy Award ceremony was held on May 16, 1929, and the very first Oscar was presented to actor Emil Jannings. The silent-movie star was actually the runner-up in the leading role category, second to celebrity dog Rin Tin Tin who had picked up more votes but was denied the award by an embarrassed academy.
The Independent, January 14, 2020
From 1993 to 2013, Russia eliminated 500 tons of weapons-grade uranium while providing 7 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity to the United States. During that period, roughly 10% of all electricity in the U.S. came from disassembled Russian nuclear warheads.
BusinessInsider, February 20, 2015
On average, American doctors give their patients an average of 11 seconds to describe their issues before interrupting them.
In the previous eight rate-hiking cycles, the S&P 500 was higher one year after the first increase every single time. The average gain during those periods -- 10.8%.
The gun laws in Tombstone, Arizona are less strict today than they were at the time of the OK Corral.
The Smithsonian, February 5, 2018
During the 1950s, people used twice as much oil as during the 1940s. During the 1960s. we used twice as much as during the 1950s. And in each of those decades, more oil was consumed than in all of man’s previous history combined.
Transcript of President Carters Address to the Nation. New York Times, April 19, 1977
"My esteem in this country has gone up substantially. It is very nice now when people wave at me, they use all of their fingers."
President Jimmy Carter
March 21, 2022
The odds of picking a perfect March Madness bracket are 1 in 9.2 quintillion when selecting each of the 63 games via a coin flip but if you know something about basketball, the odds improve to 1 in 120.2 billion.
When McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in Moscow in January 1990, over 38,000 people lined up to buy a burger.
The last speaker of the Amazonian Ature language was a parrot.
We are filling our lives with so much junk — clothes we'll never wear ... spare furniture ... stuff we "might use" — that the U.S. now has more self-storage facilities than McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger Kings, Starbucks, and Walmarts combined.
January 8, 1835, is the only day in history that the United States had no national debt
Country Codes, also known as Dialing Codes or Access Codes, determine the country of a phone number. For example, 001 is the Country Code for the United States, 007 is the code for Russia. VOIP
“Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'”
Robin Williams
March 14, 2022
If you adjust for inflation over time, the true record high for U.S. gas prices was in June of 2008, when a gallon cost roughly $5.50 in today’s dollars.
In the past 20-plus years, 21 of the 25 worst trading days were followed within a month by one of the 25 best trading days.
Due to concerns over Russia’s supply, nickel prices shot up as much as 250% in two days. On Monday, March 7th, the Chinese firm, Tsingshan Holding Group took a paper loss of $8 billion because they were short nickel futures.
“It gets worse faster than better quicker.”
Yogi Berra
One of his roles before becoming the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky was the voice of Paddington Bear in Ukrainian dubs of the movies.
The Hollywood Reporter, February 28, 2022
A thief broke into a truck in Denver and stole a dolly and one 20x15x18-inch box with “Science Care” written on the side. It is unclear if the thief realized what they were stealing, but the box actually contained several human heads bound for medical research.
“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. Teach a man to create an artificial shortage of fish and he will eat steak forever.”
Jay Leno
March 7, 2022
Based on data going back to 1896, the DOW gains 2.7% a week after the index experiences a 10% correction and it gains 3.3% a month out, 5.2% six months later, and 8.7% a year afterward.
MarketWatch, February 23, 2022
“The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”
Warren Buffet
Today, the annual price of child care is more than the annual cost of in-state tuition at a public four-year university.
MarketWatch, February 14, 2022
Over the past 20 years, a bad January and February has typically been followed by a solid March for all three benchmark indexes.
An average of 1,060 new apps are released on the IOS Apple App Store every day.
A new survey found that 39% of pet owners admit to having sampled their pets’ food before serving it to them, with 29% saying it tasted surprisingly good.
Nexstar Media, February 26, 2022
“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”
Ambrose Bierce
February 21, 2022
From a base that was already a record, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft collectively increased their profit by more than 55% in 2021. Collectively, the companies topped $1.4 trillion in revenue – which if it were a country, would rank 13th in GDP as a nation, just behind Brazil and ahead of Australia
Union membership across the U.S. workforce declined in 2021, returning to 2019’s record-low rate of 10.3%. When you remove public sector employees, the number is just over 6%.
In 1961, the labor force participation rate for prime-age men was 97%; today it is 88%, lower than during the Great Depression.
Financial Advisor, February 4, 2022
17-year-old Charli D’Amelio earned more last year than the CEOs of Exxon, Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Delta. D’Amelio is TikTok’s No. 1 influencer, with 133 million followers. That translated into $17.5 million worth of brand deals, product promotions, and a clothing line.
The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2022
In the past 10 years, the price of solar electricity has declined by 90% while the efficiency of lithium-ion batteries has increased by 90%.
The Atlantic, December 29, 2021
The average four-year-old child laughs 300 times a day. By contrast, it takes more than two months for the average 40-year-old adult to laugh that many times.
“The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.”
H.L. Mencken
February 14, 2022
“If you want peace, prepare for war.”
Roman general Vegetius, written sometime between 384-389
Nearly a third of participating respondents said they’re likely to incur credit card debt due to Valentine’s Day spending. Perhaps suggesting that love is blind in more ways than one, 43% of those respondents say they’ll hide the debt from their partner.
“Keep your eyes wide open before a marriage; half shut afterwards.” Benjamin Franklin
Some 46% of remote workers are showering less than they did when they were working in person. 41% are washing clothes less, 26% are brushing their teeth less, and 25% say they work from the toilet daily, either answering emails and messages or attending virtual meetings. Business Insurance, February 10, 2022
Megan Markle and Prince Harry signed a $25 million podcast deal with Spotify…but didn’t produce a single piece of content in 2021.
Morning Brew, January 25, 2022
Old songs now represent 70% of the U.S. music market. The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from older songs.
The Atlantic, January 31, 2022
“My health is good; it’s my age that’s bad.”
Roy Acuff
February 7, 2022
In November of 2021, virtually no new homes in the U.S. sold for under $200,000. Compare that to 2002, when house prices under $200k accounted for 56% of new home sales.
Morning Brew, December 24, 2021
Online sales accounted for roughly 23% of the $4.583 trillion of total U.S. retail sales in 2021.
Death benefits paid by U.S. life insurers rose by 15.4% in 2020 to $90.4 billion, the biggest increase since the 1918 influenza epidemic. Sales of insurance policies also grew by 7.7%, the largest increase in 25 years.
The Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2021
Simon Bramhall, a British surgeon was banned from practicing medicine for branding his initials on livers he had transplanted. When one of the patients needed a follow-up surgery because the organ failed a week later, another surgeon discovered Bramhall's initials.
About one in five healthcare workers have left their job since the start of the pandemic.
The Atlantic, November 16, 2021
Roman numerals are used for the Super Bowl (for example, Super Bowl LVI instead of Super Bowl 2022), because the football season falls in two calendar years.
The Washington Post, Feb 1, 2022
“Ninety percent of the game is half mental.”
Yogi Berra
January 31, 2022
Since 1946, there have been 84 declines of 5% to 10% in the S&P 500, which works out to more than one a year. The average time it takes to recover from those losses is one month.
On average, retailers expect to get back about 16.6% of the total merchandise that customers purchased in 2021 which adds up to more than $761 billion. The average rate of returns of online purchases was 20.8%.
“Subjectivity is just objectivity waiting for data.”
Dave Eggers
Since the Spring of 2021, roughly 33 million Americans have quit their jobs. In November alone, a record-breaking 1 million leisure and hospitality workers quit.
U.S. companies have less than a five-day supply of semiconductors. For context, there is currently a 40 day supply of Mac & Cheese.
Morning Brew, January 26, 2022
China’s green energy ambitions will likely rely on a great deal of nuclear energy, with the country planning 150 new reactors in the next 15 years, which would be more than the rest of the world has built in the past 35 years.
Numerous rioters who infiltrated the Capitol on Jan 6 called Nancy Pelosi’s office the next day trying to recover items they’d lost during the insurrection. The rioters were “asking whether there was a lost and found because they forgot their phone there, or they left their purse,” said Rep. Jamie Haskin. He said the callers were put through to police officers who took down their names and addresses.
Business Insider, January 14, 2022
January 24, 2022
“Everyone has the brainpower to make money in stocks. Not everyone has the stomach.”
Peter Lynch
Two-thirds (67%) of people globally said that they believe that journalists and reporters purposely try to mislead people by saying things they know are false or grossly exaggerated. Just 39% of people in the U.S. said they trust media – down six points compared to the last survey taken in 2021.
PressGazette, January 19, 2022
A record 5.4 million new business applications were filled in 2021. That’s up from the previous record of 4.4 million in 2020. In 2019, the year before the coronavirus disrupted life as we know it, there were 3.5 million new business applications.
North Korea launched a campaign to pressure citizens to produce more human poop for fertilizing crops. The country has long sourced its agricultural manure from China, but that trade ceased after North Korea closed its borders at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. North Koreans who fail to meet their manure quota will be fined and not allowed into public food markets.
In 2021, nearly half the global population was affected by malnutrition, however, the balance has shifted: Today more deaths result globally from people being overweight than underweight.
America now has 1 million fewer college students than before the start of the pandemic and enrollment among first-year students is 9.2% lower than pe-pandemic levels.
New York Times, January 13, 2022
“Three o’clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.”
Jean-Paul Sartre
January 17, 2022
The unemployment rate in December of 2021 was lower than it was during every month in the 1970s, 80's, and 90's.
About 60% of Gen Z and millennial investors have made an investment as a result of a tip on social media.
“If people weren’t so often wrong, we wouldn’t be so rich.” Charlie Munger
The highest monthly inflation rate ever recorded was in Hungary in July of 1946. Inflation was recorded at 13,600,000,000,000,000% and prices doubled every 15.6 hours.
Taking into account costs incurred by both employers and workers, the expenses of a pension plan are about half of an average 401(k).
InvestmentNews, January 10, 2022
The Mississippi River is the cleanest it’s been in more than a century, with pollution down to 1% of what it was in the 1980s, while the Thames, once declared dead, is now “home to a myriad of wildlife as diverse as London itself.”
Future Crunch, December 31, 2021
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
Martin Luther King
January 10, 2022
As of Dec 31, the S&P was up more than 90% over the last three years, its best three-year stretch since 1999.
Today, Apple has a market value larger than the GDP of all but four countries - the US, China, Japan, and Germany.
“Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for a ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair.”
Sam Ewing
“I’m optimistic about life. If I can be so optimistic when I’m nearly dead, surely the rest of you can handle a little inflation."
Charlie Munger, 98, January 2, 2022
The U.S. population grew at a slower rate in 2021 than in any other year since the founding of the nation. The country’s population grew by only 0.1% or an additional 392,665 people- the first time it grew by fewer than 1 million people since 1937.
US Census Bureau, December 21, 2022
A recent study confirmed that investors have a habit of remembering their returns as better than they actually were, which leads to overconfidence, higher trading frequency, and loss of wealth.
“Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”
Jim Rohn
January 3, 2022
A federal court in Germany ruled that a man who injured himself at home while walking from his bed to his desk was technically “commuting” and is thus entitled to workers' compensation.
The Guardian, December 9, 2021
In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted - that due to productivity increases through technological advancements – the American workweek would shrink to just 15 hours by 2030. Decades later, a 1965 Senate committee said, “Nah, sooner” and predicted that we would be toiling just 14 hours a week by the year 2000.
Morning Brew, December 26, 2021
A village in Whales, United Kingdom, lost its broadband at 7:00am every morning. The problem continued for 18 months until engineers discovered that a resident was turning on an old television at that time each morning, and that signal was interfering with the broadband connection for the village.
“Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression."
Sir John Harvey-Jones
The return of a $50 item is expected to cost merchants an average of $33 this season, up 59% from 2020.
The world's 10 richest people added $402 billion to their net worth in 2021.
“Rich people have money. Wealthy people have time.”
Robert Kiyosaki
December 20, 2021
For years conventional wisdom held that millennials would become the generation that largely spurned homeownership. Instead, since 2019, when they surpassed the baby boomers to become the largest living adult generation in the U.S., they reached a milestone, accounting for more than half of all home-purchase loan applications.
The Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2021
Americans throw away 25% more trash during the Thanksgiving to New Year's holiday period than any other time of year. The extra waste amounts to 25 million tons of garbage. If every family reused just two feet of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet. The 2.65 billion Christmas cards sold each year in the U.S. could fill a football field 10 stories high.
The average NFL team sends more clothes to the laundry in one week than the average family does in two years. An average team can clean more than 5,500 pounds a week, compared to the average household which does 41.5 pounds.
Consumer Reports, April 26, 2012
The sales of canned meat, Spam, hit a record high for the seventh year in a row.
On Monday of last week, 90% of the total bitcoin supply of 21 million has been mined.
Founded in 1976, it took Apple 44 years to reach the $1 trillion level for the first time. Two years later, in August of 2020, the stock hit $2 trillion. And now just 15 months later, the stock is zeroing in on $3 trillion.
“In trading, you have to be defensive and aggressive at the same time. If you are not aggressive, you are not going to make any money, and if you are not defensive, you are not going to keep it.”
Ray Dalio
December 13, 2021
Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Tesla, between them, have gained $6.5 trillion of value since their March 2020 lows. Apple alone has risen in value by an astonishing $1.85 trillion in just 433 trading sessions.
Axios Markets, December 9, 2021
Last year, there were just 24 Electric Vehicle models for sale in the US. By 2025, consumers will have 146 EV models to choose from.
For every $1 billion in online sales, demand for 1.25 million additional square feet of warehouse space is needed.
Clement Moore, the author of “Twas the night before Christmas” wrote the poem more than 200 years ago because the streets of New York were loud and he wanted to evoke a quiet stay-at-home type of celebration, hence the phrase, “Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”
In nearly 13 years since bitcoin was first introduced, cryptocurrencies have ballooned into a $2.6 trillion asset class.
Before the pandemic changed the working world, Americans ranked flexibility to set their own work schedules as the 74th most important out of 76 attributes associated with a successful and happy life. Now it sits at No. 2, second only to compensation.
“What doesn’t kill you mutates and tries again.”
Anonymous
December 6, 2021
Thirty-five percent of home sellers received more than they asked for their properties, netting them an average of $85,000 more than their asking price.
Over the past century, global life expectancy has roughly doubled, to 72.6 years. In the United States, it rose from 39 years in 1860 to 53 in 1920 to 78.8 in 2019. A report by the World Economic Forum estimated that about half of babies born in the U.S. in 2007 will live to be 104. The Week, November 27, 2021
Between 1980 and 2019, the inflation-adjusted costs of attending college rose 169%. Over the same time, the earnings for workers ages 22 to 27 rose 19%.
Due to digital notifications, people are switching between different screens on an average of 566 times per day.
The Wall Street Journal, November 15, 2021
The story that the Coca-Cola marketing department created Santa Claus wearing red and white, the companies iconic color, is nonsense. Initially, the great jolly man, clad in red and white, was promoting another soft drink, White Rock.
Have you ever wondered why the abbreviation for a barrel of oil is BBL instead of BL? When the first oil well was drilled in 1859 oil was transported in barrels of various sizes. It then became common practice to use the 40-gallon whiskey barrels. However this didn’t account for leakage during transportation so the Standard Oil Company used 42-gallon barrels and painted them blue guaranteeing a buyer that it was 42-gallons of oil, thus BBL originated as a symbol for “blue barrels.”
A Nevada man who claimed to have proof of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election has pleaded guilty to voter fraud.
November 29, 2021
With a diameter of 9 inches, a count of 7,680 calories, and a price of $45, the 3.25 pound Reese’s solid peanut butter and chocolate Thanksgiving Pie sold out within hours of going on sale.
Business Insider, November 16, 2021
The tight labor market and concern of Covid Risk have created a shortage of Santas, leaving many organizations that run holiday events scrambling to find bearded men in red suits. Working Santas are raising their rates as high as $200 an hour.
The Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2021
“I am suspicious of all the things that the average people believe.”
H.L. Mencken
Meetings now occupy more than half the workweek, with the average professional spending 21.5 hours a week on them. Before the pandemic, that number was just 14.2 hours a week. Fortune, November 24, 2021
Sales of pregnancy tests are up 13% year-over-year since June 2020. The average annual increase between 2016 and 2019 was 2%.
S&P 500 companies are on track to grow profits by 41.5% year over year.
The varsity football team at the California School of the Deaf was once considered an easy win for the opponents. Now, after seven straight losing seasons, the cubs are not only beating their opponents: They’re trouncing them. On Friday, Nov 12th, in the second round of the playoffs, the Cubs beat the Desert Christian Knights, 84-12, a score that would have been even more lopsided had the Cubs not shown mercy by putting their second-string players in for the entire second half. The Cubs confound opponents with a rapid, efficient no-huddle offense, using hand signals between plays to turn what might be thought as a deficit into an advantage.
The New York Times, November 15, 2021
November 22, 2021
From July 2020 to June 2021, U.S. homes were on the markets for an average of one week before going under contract, a record low dating back 32 years.
From 1999 to 2021, the total debt burden for Americans over the age of 70 increased 614% to $1.27 trillion. Today, roughly 46% of all Americans expect to retire in debt.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway was a net seller of equities for the fourth straight quarter, a trend not seen in data going back to 2008. The company’s pile of cash climbed to a record $149.2 billion.
After waiting seven hours in an emergency room without treatment for a head injury, an Atlanta woman walked out of the hospital. She later received a bill for $700. Emory Healthcare explained, she was charged what's called a "facility fee" or "emergency room visiting fee."
The Social Security trust funds hold almost $2.9 trillion of the United States’ $28.4 trillion debt—more than the combined holdings of our top two foreign creditors, Japan ($1.3 trillion) and China ($1.0 trillion). So while many people believe that much of the U.S. national debt is owed to foreign countries, the truth is, most of it is owed to Social Security and pension funds right here in the U.S. This means U.S. citizens own most of the national debt.
Turns out all of those “disappointing” jobs reports from the summer were a lot less disappointing than we thought. From June through September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics underestimated job growth by 626,000 jobs, the largest underestimation by the BLS over a comparable time period dating back to 1979.
Morning Brew, November 18, 2021
“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
George Burns
November 15, 2021
A week before the start of COP26, endowments, portfolios, and pension funds worth just shy of $40 trillion have now committed to full or partial abstinence from coal, gas, and oil stocks. That’s larger than the gross domestic product of the United States and China combined.
New York Times, October 26, 2021
The U.S. truck driver shortage stands at 80,000 today and is on track to double by 2030. Truck drivers move 71% of the U.S. economy’s goods but represent just 4% of the vehicles on the roads.
Eighty-seven countries, representing over 90% of global GDP, are now exploring the development of a central bank digital currency.
The United States has just 8 public toilets for every 100,000 people, a rate that ties the country with Botswana in terms of access to facilities.
In 2020 and 2021, a whopping 13,250 apartments across the country have come from repurposed offices. Former office buildings make up 41% of the apartment conversion market, which also includes old hotels, warehouses, factories, and even hospitals. The renovations can cost up to 40% less than new construction.
The U.S. international trade deficit for goods and services surged 11.2% in September to a new record high of $80.9 billion.
“The problem is more and more of our imports are coming from overseas.”
George Bush
November 8, 2021
Since 1945, the S&P 500 has climbed an average of 6.8% in the November-through-April period, the highest average change for any rolling six-month span, compared with an average 1.7% gain from May through October.
This year, the government collected $627 billion more in tax revenue than it did in fiscal 2020, pulling in a record-high $4.05 trillion.
In seven years, Amazon has grown from a zero share of the U.S. shipping market to 21%, surpassing FedEx at 16%. The US postal service remains dominant with 38%, while UPS accounts for 24%.
“The reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day.”
Anne Lamott
During the Fed’s last taper, the S&P 500 gained 15% in a broad advance.
Baleen whales, which include humpback, blue, and minke whales, eat more than 10-20 tons of food a day which is the equivalent of about 70,000 - 80,000 Big Macs
Morning Brew , November 3, 2021
“I’m giving up drinking until Christmas. Sorry, wrong punctuation. I’m giving up. Drinking until Christmas.
Annoymous
November 1, 2021
According to the National Association for Business Economics, in the last three months, a record-high number of U.S. companies (58%) increased pay at their firms. 0% of companies lowered wages.
In the United States, of every dollar spent on food, just 14.3 cents goes to farmers.
The wait for micro-chips from order to delivery is now at a record 21.7 weeks.
The first person convicted of speeding was going eight mph. On Jan. 28, 1896, Walter Arnold was spotted going four times the speed limit. A Constable chased him down on his bicycle.
In 2022 the annual Social Security cost of living increase, or COLA, will be 5.9%, the largest increase since 1983. However, healthcare costs have been rising faster than federal cost-of-living adjustments for a long time. By one estimate, adjusted for what seniors actually spend money on, the purchasing power of Social Security income has declined by 30% since 2000.
The Motley Fool, September 26, 2021
The share of U.S. transactions made in cash fell to 19% in 2020, a seven-point decline from 2019.
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, May 5, 2021
New data from the U.K. shows that in 2020 no male babies were given the popular name “Nigel.” However, 15 British babies were blessed with the first name “Lucifer.”
BirminghamLive, October 19, 2021
October 25, 2021
Nearly 7% of employees in the “accommodations and food services” sector left their job in August. That means one in 14 hotel clerks, restaurant servers, and barbacks quit their job in a single month.
The Atlantic, October 15, 2021
As of June of this year, the top 1% of households now hold a larger share of U.S. wealth (27%) than the entire middle class (26.6%). It’s the lowest share of national wealth held by the middle class on record.
Morning Brew, October 18, 2021
The number of jobs created by the commercial internet has more than tripled since 2012, shifting the United States from an industrial economy to an information econom.
Nearly 2/3rds of Americans who use social media platforms believe life was better before it. About a quarter believe they are addicted to social media and 42% of Gen Z say they are addicted and couldn’t stop if they tried.
A renowned female crime novelist who won a million-euro prize in Spain turned out to be three middle-aged men.
BusinessInsider, October 17, 2021
The S&P 500 has averaged outsized gains of 3.9% in the fourth quarter and was up four out of every five years since World War II.
“During the day, I don’t believe in ghosts. At night, I’m a little more 0pen-minded.”
Unknown
October 11, 2021
Only 47 stocks in the S&P 500 have fallen in price in the past year.
MarketWatch, September 29, 2021
Gold is one of the largest financial assets in the world with an average trading volume of $183 billion. Since 2011, the S&P 500 has returned more than 16% on an annualized basis. In that same time period, the 10-year Treasury has returned close to 2%, however, the price of gold has fallen slightly.
The world now has 3,204 billionaires, the first time the number has risen above 3,000. Businessinsider, September 24, 2021
Televangelist Kenneth Copeland told his congregation that airline vaccine mandates were “the mark of the Beast” and yet another reason why they should buy him a private jet.
Yahoo!News, September 23, 2021
In the second quarter of 2021, 11.5 Americans quit their job, and by July, 8.4 million potential workers were jobless even as a record 10.9 million positions remained open.
Rising 29.4% in 2020, America posted its biggest spike in murders and manslaughter since modern records began.
“Horse sense is a good judgment which keeps horses from betting on people.”
W.C. Fields
October 4, 2021
In September the stock market finished in the red, ending an incredible seven-month-long winning streak. These streaks actually tend to be quite bullish for future returns, with the S&P 500 higher six months later 13 out of 14 times.
Nearly 90% of the stocks in the Russell 2000 have already suffered corrections of at least 10% this year.
“Investors remember three things: How much they initially invested, what was it worth at the high-water mark, and what’s it worth today.”
Mark Zinder
Because of pandemic stress eating, the CDC reported the number of states in which 35% of the population is obese has soared from nine in 2018 to 16 this year.
Congress has raised or suspended the debt ceiling 78 times since 1960.
From 1955 to 1998, home prices in America have increased just 0.1 percentage point per year over inflation. In fact, for the entire 20th century, the annual average increase in home prices was only a 0.2 percentage point per year over the inflation rate. Over the past year, nominal U.S. home prices are up nearly 20% or about 15% in real terms.
MarketWatch, September 30, 2021
“No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you.”
Althea Gibson
September 27, 2021
Intuit agreed to buy the email marketer Mailchimp for $12 billion. It is the largest-ever acquisition of a privately held “bootstrapped” company: Mailchimp has not taken any funding since its founding in 2001.
As of Sunday, Sept 19, there were 73 ships waiting to unload cargo at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The Wall Street Journal, September 21, 2021
The United States now ranks 57th in the world for the percentage of the population vaccinated. One of the most highly vaccinated countries in the world five months ago, the U.S. now trails all of Western Europe except for Switzerland.
“Stupidity is always amazing, no matter how used to it you become.” Jean Cocteau
In addition to selling billions and billions of hamburgers, McDonald’s slings more than 1 billion toys each year in their Happy Meals, making it among the largest toy distributors in the world.
Morning Brew, September 22, 2021
Facebook paid 23.4 million for Mark Zuckerberg’s security detail last year. Google paid out $5.4 million for security for its CEO, Sundar Pichia, while Amazon paid $1.6 million for Jeff Bezos. Apple only paid $470,000 for Tim Cook.
“You better live every day like it is your last because one day you’re going to be right.”
Ray Charles
September 20, 2021
U.S. manufacturers have a backlog of unfilled orders worth $1.2 trillion.
Axios Markets, September 15, 2021
Apple has enough cash in its coffers ($204 billion) to give $600 to every person in the United States.
"Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day."
Jim Rohn
Bidding started at $2 million for the Los Angeles cemetery crypt directly adjacent to Hugh Hefner’s and Marilyn Monroe’s. The seller of the empty family crypt says the price “goes back to the old adage “location, location, location.”
66% of Republicans in the South support seceding from the U.S. to form their own country. 50% of independents and 20% of Democrats in the South are also in favor of secession.
During the 1990s, more than ten million dogs were euthanized in America every year. Euthanizations have fallen dramatically, to about 670,000 dogs per year. The overwhelming majority of shelter dogs are now adopted rather than put down.
“When it comes down to it, comedy is just rehearsed moaning.”
Sean Locke
September 13, 2021
Taxpayers have already spent $925 billion in interest payments related to post 9/11 wars.
Marketwatch, September 5, 2021
Just 1.6% of college football players make it into the NFL and just 0.8% of women college basketball players make it into the WNBA.
U.S. restaurants generate an estimated 22 to 33 billion pounds of food waste each year. Institutions — including schools, hotels, and hospitals — generate an additional 7 to 11 billion pounds per year. Approximately 4% to 10% of food purchased by restaurants is wasted before reaching the consumer.
Unreported income is the biggest contributor to the so-called tax gap. The Treasury estimated the gap (the difference between tax paid and tax owed) to be $584 billion in 2019. About 80% of the gap comes from “opaque income sources,” such as partnerships, proprietorships, and rental property.
According to a new survey, half of millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) believe that they will need $300,000 or less in savings to retire comfortably- a fraction of what most estimates say they will need.
The U.S. economy grew 12.2% in the second quarter of this year. If the American edge should continue for at least the next few quarters, it would be the first sustained period since at least 1990 in which the U.S. economy grew faster than China’s.
The Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2021
“More and more we are into communications; and less and less into communication.”
Studs Terkel
August 30, 2021
Roughly 75% of all foods and beverages in America contain added sugar. According to the American Heart Association, the average adult swallows the equivalent of six bowling balls of the stuff each year. Meanwhile, the average child downs enough added sugar to fill a bathtub. Medium, August 18, 2021
Last month, three out of four cargo containers leaving the port of Los Angeles were empty. The Port of Los Angeles head, Gene Seroka said, “Our largest export commodity continues to be air.
In 2012, Senator Rand Paul fought for the passage of the STOCK Act, which aimed to combat insider trading, claiming that officeholders should not profit from the “special knowledge” they gain in government. Last week Senator Paul divulged, 16 months late, that his wife invested in the maker of the coronavirus-fighting drug Remdesivir on February 26, 2020- just before most people realized we were entering a pandemic.
New research shows that U.S. alcohol consumption rose 39% during the pandemic and 323% among mothers with young children.
Americans are on average 7.8 points more confident than Brits that they could beat various animals in a one-on-one fight, including a medium-size dog, a chimpanzee, a kangaroo, and a goose.
Thirty-three percent of new jobs in the United States are for occupations that did not exist 25 years ago.
“If A is success in life, then A = X + Y + Z. Work is X, play is Y, and Z is keeping your mouth shut.” Albert Einstein
August 23, 2021
The last time the S&P had a pullback of 5% or more was October 2020. Since 1929, the S&P has experienced only 12 other streaks of nine months long like this one.
Seeking Alpha, August 16, 2021
32% of U.S. investors say they have made trades while drunk. Gen Z members fell into the trap the most of any generation, with 59% confessing to drunk trading, while 9% of baby boomers admitted to trading under the influence.
Only 3% in the United States, 10% in the U.K., and 12% in Canada “strongly agree” that universities in their countries are preparing graduates for success in the current workforce. Forbes, March 15, 2021
"At best, most college presidents are running something that is somewhere between a faltering corporation and a hotel."
Leon Botstein
Using a supercomputer, Swiss researchers have calculated the mathematical constant pi to a new world record of exactitude, hitting 62.8 trillion figures. The calculation took 108 days and nine hours.
The Daily Star, August 20, 2021
Adoptions and purchases brought the U.S. dog and cat population to 160 million- roughly double what it was a half-century ago. Annual spending on pet food and care, in turn, has reached $103 billion and is expected to triple over the next decade.
“If aliens were watching us with telescopes and saw our interactions with dogs, they might think dogs were the leaders: if you see two life forms — one of them is making a poop and the other is carrying it for him — who would you assume is in charge?”
Jerry Seinfeld
August 16, 2021
One out of every 350 Americans – or one out of 153 workers in the U.S. – is now employed by Amazon. The company’s total of 950,000 U.S. employees exceeds the 873,000 workers of the entire residential construction industry.
BusinessInsider, July 30, 2021
The combined stock market values of Apple, Alphabet, Nvidia, Tesla, Microsoft, and Facebook have increased by about 70% since the start of the pandemic, to more than $10 trillion. That is roughly the size of the entire U.S. stock market in 2002.
The Economic Times, July 24, 2021
In June, 76.6% of the new homes sold were either still under construction or not yet started. Completed homes represented a record-low 10.2% of the supply of new homes on the market. Axios.com, July 27, 2021
“I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.” Margaret Thatcher
About 407 billion square feet of corrugated cardboard was produced in the U.S. last year- enough to completely cover the combined land area of New Jersey, Connecticut, and a bit of New York.
After the unemployment rate for younger workers shot up to 32% last summer, the jobless rate for teens dropped to 9.6% this May, the lowest it’s been since 1953.
“People change, and forget to tell each other.”
Lillian Hellman
August 9, 2021
The S&P 500’s forward P/E touched a high of 23.6 on August 28, 2020. That day, the S&P closed at 3,508. Since then the forward P/E has trended lower while during that same period the S&P 500 surged 25% to 4,395.
Americans age 70 and above have a net worth of nearly $35 trillion. That amounts to 27% of all U.S. wealth and is equal to 157% of the U.S. gross domestic product.
The Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2021
Twenty percent of Americans believe that it is “definitely true” or “probably true” that the government is using the Covid-19 vaccine to microchip the population.
The Miami Herald, July 10, 2021
Aduhelm, a drug sold to fight Alzheimer’s, will sell for a list price of $56,000 per year. If every one of the 5.8 million Medicare-eligible adults with Alzheimer’s took Aduhelm, it would cost Medicare $334.5 billion a year, or about half the Department of Defense annual budget. NumlockNews, June 30, 2021
During the second quarter of 2021, household debt rose by its highest dollar amount in 14 years thanks mostly to a surge in the housing market. That has brought the collective American IOU to just shy of $15 trillion.
Facebook expects to dole out more cash outfitting its computer hubs and offices in 2021 than Exxon spends in a year around the world to dig oil and gas out of the ground.
A Washington Post food writer is advising people to stop calling foods “exotic” because it “reinforces xenophobia and racism.”
August 2, 2021
In the United States last year, renewables became the second-most prevalent energy source, second only to natural gas. Accounting for 21% of all electricity generation, renewables topped both nuclear and coal for the first time.
Apple’s profits from the past three months ($21.7 billion) was nearly double the combined annual profits of the five largest U.S. airlines in pre-pandemic 2019.
According to a new study, 45% of remote employees work regularly from a couch, 38% from their bed, 20% work outdoors, and 19% in a closet.
New data shows that investor-driven purchases accounted for 5.7% of homes sold in April and are reducing inventory in 31 of the top 50 U.S. markets
A would-be homebuyer in Bethesda, MD, pledged to name her first-born child after the seller in a written offer. She lost.
Fifty-two percent of Wharton’s incoming MBA class is female, the first time a Top 7 business school has admitted more women than men.
The Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2021
While sitting on the porch with her husband, a woman was sipping on a glass of wine, and she says, “I love you so much, I don’t know how I could ever live without you.” Her husband asks, “Is that you talking or the wine talking?” She replied, “It’s me…talking to the wine.”
July 26, 2021
Looking at 90 years of data, the S&P 500 rose, on average, 10.8% when bond yields fell and rose 12.2% when bond yields rose. Even separating out periods by quintiles when yields rose the most, the S&P 500 still gained 9% on average.
In June of 2021, the average price paid for a new car was $39,948, and the average price paid for a one-year-old used car was $39,868, an $80 difference.
The Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2021
Frustrated by the rising price of homes, cars, and durable goods like home appliances, 33% of consumers said it was a bad time to buy because prices were too high. This is an all-time record according to data going back to 1960.
Hot dogs often come in packs of 10, while hot dog buns regularly come in groups of eight. Heinz, the manufacturer of condiments, has posted an online petition urging “Big Bun” and “Big Wiener” to get together and put 10 hot dogs in a package and 10 buns in a package. The petition has gained nearly 30,000 signatures.
New York Daily News, July 8, 2021
"To become an Olympic athlete you only have to do two things: Work out when you want to. Work out when you don't want to.
Mark Zinder (not an Olympic athlete)
One in five TV news directors surveyed said their crews had been attacked over the past year, and 86% said they’d added security precautions due to physical and verbal hostility towards news crews.
“If I insist on giving you my truth, and never stop to receive your truth in return, there can be no truth between us.”
Thomas Merton, Trappist monk
July 19, 2021
Going back to 1950, when the S&P 500 was at an all-time high, there was a 74.10% chance the market was higher one year later.
Immigrants make up roughly 18% of the U.S. workforce but they have won 39% of this country’s Nobel prizes in science. They make up over 40% of the STEM PhD graduates, 28% of our science and engineering faculty, and they have founded more than 50% of the billion-dollar startup companies in the United States.
Since the 1990s, lumber has mostly traded between $200 to $400 per thousand board feet. Earlier this year, lumber peaked at $1,733.50 per thousand board feet, but on Monday, July 12, it traded at $719.90, down 0.6% for the year.
“It’s a sure sign of summer if the chair gets up when you do.” Walter Winchell
Only 34% of goods and services have risen in price by more than 2% over the past year, and that percentage is falling rather than rising.
The pandemic has pushed global government debt to the highest level since WWII, surpassing the world’s annual economic output.
The Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2021
“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.”
Oscar Wilde
July 12, 2021
Almost 750 money-losing firms have sold shares in the secondary market in the past 12 months. They outnumber stock offerings from profitable companies by 2 to 1, the biggest margin since at least 1982.
At the end of 2008, there was just $915 billion worth of assets indexed to the S&P 500. The S&P closed at 903 that year. In 2020, as passive investing has become increasingly popular, assets indexed to the S&P nearly quintupled to $5.4 trillion (493%) as the index itself tripled.
In May, there were 500,219 applications for new businesses, the second-highest month on record.
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Thomas A. Edison
U.S. households added $13.5 trillion in wealth last year, the biggest increase on record going back three decades.
The Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2021
More than 400 ships traveling between Asia and the West Coast were late by more than two weeks during the first five months of this year. Compare that to 388 vessels in total that were late between 2012 and 2020.
“When I lost my rifle, the Army charged me 85 dollars. That is why in the Navy the Captain goes down with the ship.”
Dick Gregory
July 5, 2021
Sunday, July 4th marked the 245th commemoration of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Since then the country has grown from 13 colonies and roughly 2.5 million people to 50 states and 14 territories with a population that exceeds 330 million. The economy has swelled to almost $21 trillion and economic output per person has risen by a factor of 30. Advances in public health have cut the child mortality rate from more than 45% to under 1%. More than 200 million people have at least finished high school, compared to 18 million in 1940. We’ve built almost 3 million miles of paved roads and more than 5,000 public airports. In 1800, 95% of the population lived in rural areas; more than 80% now live in urban cities and towns, and minorities represent close to 30% of the population. The 244th year was a tough one, but so far, the American experiment has held strong.
The net worth of U.S. households climbed to new heights as 2021 began and the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic began to fade. The total balance sheet for households and nonprofits rose to $136.9 trillion in the first quarter.
“History began on July 4th, 1776. Everything before that was a mistake.” Ron Swanson
At a White House dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners, President Kennedy said, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and of human knowledge that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
John F. Kennedy, April 29, 1962
From 1789 to 2019, approximately 11,770 measures have been proposed to amend the constitution. Congress sent 33 of the proposed Amendments to the States for ratification. Of those, 27 have been ratified: 11 in the 1700s, 4 in the 1800s, and 12 in the 1900s.
The number of Costco memberships reached 105.5 million in 2020, exceeding the number of U.S. households that pay for cable TV.
There was a proposal at the Constitutional Convention to limit the standing army for the country to 5,000 men. George Washington sarcastically agreed with this proposal as long as a stipulation was added that no invading army could number more than 3,000 troops!
June 29, 2021
The cost of sending a 40-foot container from Shanghai to Rotterdam is now $10,500, up from $8,900 in January, $5,800 in December, and $2,800 in November.
An estimated $140 billion worth of Bitcoin holdings can’t be accessed because owners have forgotten their passwords or digital keys.
Markets Insider, January 12, 2021
At the end of 2020, there were 215,030 adults in the world who were classified at ultra-high net worth- those with more than $50,000,000 in net assets. In addition, there were 56.1 million millionaires, up 5.2 million or 10.2% from a year ago.
An estimated 16% of NFL players go bankrupt within 12 years of retirement.
In May 2021, 64% of the time American viewers used their television sets was spent watching network and cable TV, and just 6% streaming Netflix. The remaining time was spent streaming other services like Hulu (3%), Amazon (2%), or Disney+ (1%) or using their screens for things like video games or watching programs or films they had saved on their DVR.
In 2020, charitable giving in the U.S. hit an all-time high of $471 billion.
“There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and that of the dumbest tourists.”
Yosemite National Park Ranger
June 21, 2021
President Biden is the 5th U.S. president to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the 13th U.S. president to meet Queen Elizabeth II.
Reuters, June 16, 2021, and Denver Post, June 11, 2021
With only a 12-month shelf life, the girl scouts have 15 million boxes of unsold cookies after the pandemic curtailed the spring selling season.
More than 4 in 10 workers say they’re considering leaving their jobs and a record 4 million people quit their jobs in April.
“The real hell of life is that everyone has their reasons.” Jean Renoir
The lowest wage that workers without a college degree would be willing to accept for a new job now stands at an all-time high of $61,483, a rise of $10,000 in just one year.
According to the Fed's data, bank deposits have continued to surge this year. Between late March and May 26, they rose by $411 billion to $17.09 trillion. That is slower than the pace last spring, but still nearly four times the average of the past 20 years.
“When Artificial Intelligence becomes self-aware, they’ll know immediately to hide that fact from us.”
Anonymous
June 14, 2021
From October 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021, U.S. small-cap value stocks returned 76.8%, way ahead of the 14.4% posted by large growth companies. The 62.4 percentage point difference is the largest for any six months since the first half of 1943.
More than 25% of shoppers at Levi’s have a different size today than before the pandemic.
The oldest known bottle of whiskey is expected to fetch between $20,000 to $40,000 at an upcoming auction. Once residing in the cellar of the financier J.P. Morgan, the Old Ingledew Whiskey, is believed to have been produced between 1762 and 1802.
Italian artist Salvatore Garau recently auctioned an invisible sculpture for 15,000 euros ($18,300). The sculpture's initial price was set between 6,000 and 9,000 euros; however, the price was raised after several bids were placed. Titled 'Io Sono' (Italian for "I am"), the 67-year-old artist's sculpture is "immaterial," meaning that the sculpture does not actually exist. Per Garau's instructions, the sculpture must be displayed in a private home free from any obstruction, in an area that is about 5 ft. long by 5 ft. wide. Because the piece does not exist, there are no special lighting or climate requirements.
“Baseball is the only sport I know of where the defense controls the ball.”
Ken Harrelson, Sports Illustrated, September 1976.
Those with mortgages – about 62% of all properties – saw their equity jump by 20% in the first quarter from a year earlier. That represents a collective cash gain of close to $2 trillion. Per borrower, the average gain was $33,400.
“Every generation revolts against its fathers and makes friends with its grandfathers.”
Lewis Mumford
June 7, 2021
Tech giants Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Tesla, and Nvidia have the same market capitalization as the U.K., German, French, Italian, Russian, and Polish stock indexes…combined.
Amidst a global pandemic, economic uncertainties, and market volatility, a new generation of investors was born: 15% of all current U.S. stock market investors say they first began investing in 2020.
Five high-profile electric vehicle startups that went public through mergers with SPACs have lost $40 billion in value. At their peaks, Nikola, Fisker, Lordstown, Canoo, and Ar-rival were worth a combined $60 billion.
“I’ve never put much store in honesty. I mean, how can you trust a word whose first letter you don’t even pronounce?”
Lorrie Moore
Only 64% of Americans were actually able to explain what “Best If Used By” labels on food meant, and only 44.8% were able to describe the “Use By” label.
QAnon may be a cult, but it is as big as the combined membership of the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran churches.
“Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, has instilled within each of us a powerful biological instinct to reproduce; this is her way of assuring that the human race, come what may, will never have any disposable income.”
Dave Barry
May 24, 2021
In the first quarter of 2021, the number of 401(k) and IRA millionaires hit an all-time record high.
Flaring, the burning off of natural gas at oil production sites, declined to 142 billion cubic meters (bcm), compared to 150 bcm in 2019. However, the world still flared enough gas to power sub-Saharan Africa.
Axios Generate, April 29, 2021
After the beginning of the pandemic, about 12.6 million U.S. households got a new pet. The largest national provider of veterinarian services, Banfield Pet Hospital, saw a half-million more visits in 2020 than in 2019. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, veterinary positions are projected to grow 16% by 2029, nearly four times the average of most other occupations.
A St. Louis radio DJ, Mason Schreader got a large tattoo on his arm of his station’s call letters, “92.3 WIL.” On an unrelated note, he was fired a week later.
Ramp Radio and Music Pros, May 3, 2021
The United Nations estimates there were about 95,000 centenarians – people in their 100s – in 1990. By 2015 there were 450,000 and the number is soaring worldwide as life spans continue to grow. Projections suggest there will be 3.7 million centenarians across the globe in 2050 and 25 million by 2100.
The New York Times, April 28, 2021
The English astronomer Edmund Halley prepared the first detailed mortality table in 1693. Life and death could now be studied statistically, and the life insurance industry was born.
May 17, 2021
According to data that dates back to 1994, almost 87% of the S&P 500 companies that reported first quarter earnings results have beaten Wall Street forecasts by an average of 23.5% - the largest gap on record.
The average ransomware payment in the third quarter of 2020 was $233,817, up 31% compared to the previous quarter. There were roughly 2,500 reports of ransomware attacks to the FBI last year, up 66%. At least $350 million in cryptocurrencies has been paid to criminals.
It took Amazon 13 years to deliver a 10,000% return to investors. It took Dogecoin five months. yahoo!finance, May 4, 2021
“The closer to the top, the sillier the market behaves.”
Benjamin Graham
From February to March of this year, household income rose 21.2% - the largest amount since 1959. The U.S. savings rate of 27.6% was the second-highest on record, bringing personal savings to $6 trillion, up by nearly $5 trillion from February 2020.
The Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2021
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons said in 2020, there was a 22% increase in butt implants, perhaps because a lot of sitting leads to “general flattening.”
As a mass, Brood X cicadas emerge in such numbers that as many as 1.5 million can be found in a single acre. To attract mates, male cicadas produce sound via the tymbals on either side of their abdomens. When they all sing at once they can get to 110 decibels- roughly the same decibel level as a Metallica concert.
May 3, 2021
Charley Parkhurst, who was known as One-Eyed Charley, was a tobacco chewing, cussing, gambling California stagecoach driver who was found dead in bed on December 18, 1879. To the surprise of Charley’s friends, the person they found was not who they thought “he” was. Charley was a woman! She wore gloves in both summer and winter to hide her small hands and a patch over one eye to give her a tough-looking appearance. In 1868, she was a registered voter, making her the first woman to vote in California.
A record 96% of the components in the all-encompassing Wilshire 5000 have seen positive returns in the past 12 months.
Lee De Forest, the inventor of the radio tube, was tried for fraud by the U.S. District attorney in 1913. He was accused of tricking the public into buying stocks in his company, the Radio Telephone Company, by making absurd and deliberately misleading claims about the possibility of transmitting the human voice across the Atlantic Ocean.
On a daily basis, the average internet user spends 6 hours and 31 minutes on the internet and mobile phone users check their phones up to 63 times daily.
Last week, 15 people emerged from living in total isolation in a cave in France for 40 days as part of an experiment in “Deep Time.” Without smartphones and clocks, the participants were forced to simply be with themselves. When they finally emerged from the cave, they had no idea how much time had passed, with one participant estimating 23 days. Two-thirds of the participants said they wanted to stay underground and in isolation a little longer.
New data from the U.S. census bureau shows that as of April 1, 2020, the U.S. population stood at 331.5 million people which represents a 7.4% increase between 2010 and 2020- the second slowest rate of expansion since the government began taking the census in 1790.
“Checking luggage is like how I imagine childbirth to be. You do it, it sucks, it takes forever to come out, you forget, you do it again.”
Olivia Wilde
April 26, 2021
Since 1950, whenever the S&P 500 is up between 5% and 10% in the first quarter, the rest of the year gains, on average, are another 12.4% and were higher 86.7% of the time.
Last year, overall, the increase in home prices nationally was 17.2%. In Austin, Texas, the median listing price for a house rose 40% in one year.
The U.S. marijuana industry supports 300,000+ full-time jobs- more than the number of dentists in the country.
“To be or not to be." That’s not really a question. Jean-Luc Godard
Facebook disabled more than 1.3 billion fake accounts between October and December 2020. Reuters, March 22, 2021
U.S. homeowners cashed out $152.7 billion in home equity last year, a 42% increase from 2019 and the most since 2007. It was also a blockbuster year for mortgage originations: Lenders churned out more mortgages than ever in 2020, fueled by roughly $2.8 trillion in refinancings. The Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2021
“Creditors have better memories than debtors.”
Ben Franklin
April 19, 2021
Investors have put more money into stocks in the last 5 months than the previous 12 years combined.
It took just 434 trading days for the S&P 500 to go from 3,000 to 4,000, the shortest time frame for a 1,000-point move in its history.
Households have entered 2021 armed with boatloads of cash and the cleanest balance sheets they have had in decades. Households finished 2020 with $14.1 trillion combined in checking and savings accounts, compared with $11.4 trillion in 2019. Their debt-service burden—the percentage of after-tax income used to pay off debt—fell to its lowest level in records going back to the early 1980s.
The Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2021
“History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.”
Kurt Vonnegut
About one out of every five homes sold in the U.S. is bought by someone who never moves in. In Houston, investors account for 24% of home purchases.
The Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2021
Harvard Medical School researchers found that, despite how much doctors hate “cyberchondria,” patients are slightly better at diagnosing what ails them after consulting Google.
“We could say that the government spends money like drunken sailors, but that would be unfair to drunken sailors.”
Ronald Reagan
April 12, 2021
In March, factory activity in the U.S. hit its highest level in 37 years, but it would have been higher had there been enough qualified workers to help production lines. Additionally, Delta Airlines was forced to cancel almost 100 flights over Easter weekend due to a pilot shortage. Morning Brew, April 7, 2021
Forty-two percent of Americans gained weight while stuck at home during the pandemic. On average, people gained 29 pounds, while Millennials reported the highest average weight gain at 41 pounds.
“The food you eat can either be the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.”
Ann Wigmore
The CDC reported that just one child in the U.S. has died due to flu this season, compared with 195 U.S. children who died in total during the 2019-2020 flu season. There’s also been a significant decline in influenza deaths among U.S. adults, with about 450 flu-related deaths so far this year. Roughly 22,000 people died during the 2019-2020 flu season.
It is often said that the more education you have, the more likely you are to have a job. However, in last month’s U.S. labor report, 74.6% of men 25 and older with only a bachelor’s degree were employed compared to 72.7% of men with advanced degrees. Notably, men with advanced degrees earned a median of $136,000 a year, far more than the $71,000 in earnings of men with only a bachelor's degree.
On average, one new billionaire was added every 17 hours on the Forbes World Billionaires list, for a total of 493 first-time names on the list, and 86% of the world’s billionaires were richer than they were a year ago.
“We never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.”
Billie Holiday
April 5, 2021
That might not sound like a lot, but that increase is equivalent to 477 square miles of corrugated board, enough to cover the five boroughs of New York City with room to spare.
Gonzaga University, the first undefeated national champion since Indiana in 1976, is named after Aloysius Gonzaga, the patron saint of youth, and also, the patron saint of the victims of plagues. This makes him a suitable saint for March Madness every year, though never more than the one now upon us. He died of the plague himself 430 years ago when he was 23 years old. A statue of him at a parish church adjacent to the campus, depicts him carrying a man diminished by disease, head resting on the saint’s shoulder, commemorating Gonzaga’s time in plague-swept Rome in the late 16th century, when he would seek sufferers in the streets, carry them to the hospitals, wash their wounds and nourish their souls.
Since mid-February, the average retail investor has underperformed the S&P 500 by 11%. Investopedia Sunday, March 26, 2021
“You don’t buy life insurance because you are going to die, but because those you love are going to live.”
Anonymous
The cost of housing in America has skyrocketed. The median U.S. home in 1953 cost $18,080, or about $177,000 in today’s inflation-adjusted dollars. Today the median home price is $301,000. The Week, March 21, 2021
The bald eagle, the national symbol that once teetered on the brink of extinction, has flourished in recent years. Their numbers have quadrupled since 2009. Today, there are an estimated 316,700 bald eagles soaring high above the lower 48 states.
“A recent study has shown that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.”
Anonymous
March 29, 2021
Today, there are more real estate agents in the U.S. than homes for sale. The National Association of Realtors had 1.45 million members in January, while there were currently 1.04 million homes for sale.
The Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2021
According to the NCAA, if you were to simply guess, the odds of filling out a perfect bracket are 1-in-9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (9.2 quintillion). If you know a little something about basketball, your odds improve to 1-in-120.2 billion.
Target’s sales growth of $15.5 billion in 2020 was larger than its total sales growth of the past 11 years combined.
Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s Party!’
Robin Williams
In 2019, Google’s quantum computer Sycamore reached a milestone. In 200 seconds, the machine performed a mathematically designed calculation so complex that it would take the world’s fastest supercomputer, the IBM Summit, 10,000 years to do it. This makes Google’s quantum computer about 158 million times faster than the world’s fastest supercompute. Medium, February 28, 2021
The U.S. total fertility rate, or the number of babies each woman is expected to have during her lifetime, reached a record low of 1.705 births per woman in 2019, the last year for which data is available. That year the number of babies born in the U.S. was 3.74 million, a 35-year low. Lockdowns and fear have kept young people from meeting and marrying in 2020 which may result in 300,000 to 500,000 fewer babies born in the United States this year.
A popular chain of Sushi restaurants in Taiwan announced a limited-time offer where a customer whose name included “gui yu,” the Chinese character for salmon, could get an all-you-can-eat sushi meal with five friends. 150 people visited government offices to change their name to “salmon.” A medical student, who legally changed his name a third time to Salmon Dream, later discovered he had reached the maximum quota of name changes and would not be allowed to change his name again.
March 29, 2021
In 2019, athletic departments across all three NCAA divisions generated $10.6 billion in revenue but spent more than $18.9 billion. The two biggest costs were financial aid for athletes ($3.6 billion) and coaches’ compensation ($3.7 billion).
The Wall Street Journal, March 12, 2021
In 2020, prices for single-family homes spiked 9.4% - their best performance in over a decade. Today, based on average family income, the cost of a new home is still 3% to 4% below the affordability line.
New research shows that consumers are saving more than they have in decades, as well as repaying a record $83 billion in credit card debt in 2020.
Giving diners a single mint at the end of a meal increased tips by around 3%. If two mints were provided, tips increased by 14%. More interestingly, if the waiter provided one mint, started to walk away from the table, but paused, turned back, and said, “For you nice people, here’s an extra mint”, tips increased by 23%, influenced not by what was given but how it was given. Influence At Work
In 2020, the average driver spent 26 hours stuck in traffic, down from an average of 99 hours in 2019.
From Jan 2, 1969 – Dec 31, 2019, 7 of the best 10 days in the market happened within 2 weeks of the 10 worst days. In fact, the best day in 2011 was only one day after the worst day.
A study in New Jersey has found that the most popular type of business in that state is golf equipment stores. However, most customers come in and say, "I need a blunt object and a bag about as big as a guy."
Seth Myers
March 15, 2021
The total economic stimulus passed by the U.S. government over the past year is $5.3 trillion. That's a number so mind-bogglingly enormous that it becomes almost impossible to comprehend, so here's another way to put it: More than $43,000 per U.S. household.
Forty percent of younger respondents, aged 18-24, said they will buy stocks with their next round of stimulus checks, while 37% of 35-54-year-olds said they will be doing the same. If the survey is correct, new inflows into the stock market could total around $170 billion.
A new analysis looking into the year-over-year trends of the pandemic era found that Americans turned to some unconventional aids in their attempt to discern the unclear future, with consumer interest in psychics rising 74%, mystics rising 71%, and astrologers up 63%.
Yelp Economic Advantage, March 10, 2021
Today it costs $10,950 to purchase 1,000 fake Amazon reviews from AMZTigers, one of a number of “review manipulation services” that boost the ratings and sales of third-party merchants on Amazon. A single fake review will run you about $18.
In a recent survey, 38% of Americans would be willing to give up sex for a year in order to travel again immediately. Besides giving up sex, 25% of Americans said they would give up all their savings, 20% said they would leave their partner, and nearly 50% said they would quit their jobs- all in the name of travel.
Even though the rides are still closed because of the pandemic, Disney is charging $75 for visitors to wander around its California theme park. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, it was a 45-minute wait to simply enter the Downtown Disney area, 50 if you count the five-minute walk from the car, which cost $10 to park.
The shoe store chain Shoe Zone has announced that Terry Boot is taking over as its finance director. He is replacing (you can’t make this stuff up) Peter Foot.
March 8, 2021
Dividends paid out by U.S. corporations last year hit a record high – rising 2.6% to $503.1 billion. MarketWatch, February 22, 2021
In 2020, China spent a record 2.44 trillion yuan ($378 billion) on government-funded research and development, equaling 2.4% of their Gross Domestic Product; by contrast, the U.S. spent an estimated $134 billion, or roughly 0.7% of GDP.
Consumers said they do about 59% of their shopping online, and they expect to do 56% online after the pandemic ends. Before the coronavirus hit, consumers did about 39% of their shopping online.
The Wall Street Journal, February 23, 2021
A survey of 1,000 pet owners in October found that 42% of respondents said their dogs or cats had gained weight over the course of the pandemic.
The Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2021
In 2018, Americans sent 9.7 million tons of furniture to landfills, which was up from more than 6.5 million tons in 2000 and equivalent to 80% of all furniture manufactured that year. Bloomberg, February 23, 2021
The world’s debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 356% in 2020, up 35 percentage points from where it stood in 2019. Nonfinancial private sector debt now makes up 165% of the entire world’s economic output.
Axios Markets, February 18, 2021
Organizers of the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics sent a mixed message last week when it announced that it will ban hugs, high-fives, and other “unnecessary forms of physical contact” this summer but will distribute 150,000 free condoms to residents of the Olympic Village. India.com February 11, 2021
March 1, 2021
Mining bitcoin requires users to solve complex mathematical equations using high-powered computer setups. The electric consumption used in the process leaves an annual carbon footprint equal to the nation of New Zealand.
The average price of a used vehicle surged nearly 14% between January and December of 2020 — roughly 10 times the rate of inflation — to over $23,000.
As of December 30, 2020, margin debt in the U.S. was a staggering $778 billion, 34% higher than the $679 billion amount a year earlier.
“There are three things that can predict a future bear market: Excessive optimism, the erosion of the fundamental foundation of the underlying securities, and excessive margin debt.” Benjamin Graham
When analyzing how the S&P 500 performed under varying levels of core inflation, equities performed above average in an environment where core inflation was between 1% and 4%. Morningstar, February 21, 2021
Since Jeff Bezos took his company public in 1997, only one stock has outperformed Amazon’s 38.4% annualized return: Monster Beverage. The energy drink company has risen 41.7% over the same period. A $1,000 investment in Hansen’s Natural Corp — what Monster was called in 1997- would be worth $3.9 million today.
“If it is a 10-minute speech, it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech, it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to, it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now.”
Woodrow Wilson
February 22, 2021
It takes 919 pounds of rare earth minerals to build one 15-ton, F-35 fighter jet, a critical set of components that are about to be much harder to find. China, which controls about 80% of the global supply, is considering an export ban.
arsTECHNICA, February 16, 2021
More than 15% of debt raised in the U.S. high-yield bond market has carried a rating of CCC or below, the lowest rating given since the start of 2021. That’s the highest share since 2007. Financial Times, February 15, 2021
“Politics are about what should be; investing is about what is.”
Anonymous
A shocking new study found that the New York City subway is kind of gross. More specifically, researchers measured air quality in 71 underground stations during morning rush hours in Boston, Philly, D.C., and New York searching for particles at the PM2.5 level. Nationally, the determined safe daily level is 35 micrograms per cubic meter; New York’s subway clocked in at 251 micrograms per cubic meter and the Christopher Street station in New York which connects to the PATH train to New Jersey came in at 1,499 micrograms per cubic meter.
The Guardian, February 10, 2021. Oliver Milman
The island of Manhattan is home to roughly 1.6 million people. With an area of nearly 23 square miles, there are more than 72,000 people per square mile. If the entire world lived with this population density, all of humanity could fit into the country of New Zealand.
The Daily Overview, February 17, 2021
Credit card balances and other revolving credit lines ticked down 0.3% month over month in December and fell to 10.8% year over year, the steepest decline ever.
In 2010, a programmer bought two pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoin in what will go down as the most expensive pizza transaction ever. Assuming there were 16 slices between the two pies and you take 15 bites each- at today’s bitcoin price, that is about $2 million per bite.
Morning Brew, February 17, 2021
February 15, 2021
The rise of rechargeable batteries is now a matter of national security. Nearly 65% of lithium-ion batteries come from China. By comparison, no single country produces more than 20% of global crude oil output.
The Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2021
Since the March 2020 market bottom, the most shorted stocks – defined as the top 10% of short interest as a percentage of market cap - have rallied by 245%, outperforming the Russell 3000 index by 147 percentage points.
Thanks to the combination of reduced spending during the crisis and incomes that have been augmented by government relief checks, many people have an ample amount of money to spend. Federal Reserve figures show that as of the end of the third quarter households had $2.2 trillion more in cash and cash equivalents than at the end of 2019.
The Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2021
“I never gave anybody hell! I told them the truth and they thought it was hell!”
President Harry S. Truman
Over the past year, the combined revenue of the five biggest U.S. tech companies grew by a fifth, to $1.1 trillion. Their aggregate profit rose an even faster 24%. And their combined market capitalization soared by half over the past year to a staggering $8 trillion.
The Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2021
Over the past several years, Tesla has used the strategy of selling regulatory credits to competing automakers who failed to sell the percentage of zero-emission vehicles that 11 different states require. The $3.3 billion from those sales - $1.6 billion in the last year alone – has kept Tesla in the black. Last year, Tesla’s profits were $721 million, meaning they’d have otherwise posted a loss were it not for the credit sales.
“When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.’”
President Theodore Roosevelt
February 8, 2021
Whenever the stock market rises by more than 1.5% over the first five trading sessions of January, it’s higher for the full year more than 90% of the time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.6% over the first five sessions of January and the S&P 500 gained 1.8%. MarketWatch, January 15, 2021
So far, 82% of companies have reported a positive earnings surprise for the fourth quarter of 2020. If that rate holds, it will mark the second-highest percentage of EPS surprises since FactSet began tracking the metric in 2008.
If you think that the promise of free trading is too good to be true on the Robinhood app, you are probably right. Founded in 2012, Robinhood makes money, in part, by sending customer orders to high-frequency traders in exchange for cash. It’s a controversial but legal practice in the brokerage industry called payment for order flow. When you buy or sell shares on Robinhood, the app is likely executing your trade at a slightly worse price than another broker would.
The Wall Street Journal, November 9, 2018
"If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer- you’re the product.” Tom Johnson
On February 5, 1637, “Tulipmania” hit its peak in the Netherlands, with the price of the rare Witte Croonen tulip bulb reaching 1,345 guilders per half-pound, up 2,506% in 33 days. Over the next five years, the bulbs lost an annual average of 76% of their value, until they fetched only 37.5 guilders in 1641.
Investopedia, February 5, 2021
Keith Gill, the Reddit user who helped inspire the GameStop short squeeze mania, says he lost $13 million on Tuesday, but says he is still holding on.
“Good judgment comes from wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.”
Dr. Kerr White
February 1, 2021
In a president’s first year, February is historically the worst month for equities. From 1927 to 2017, the S&P 500 fell an average of 4% in such months.
Since June of 2018, Shoji Morimoto has been advertising himself as a person who can “eat and drink, and give simple feedback, but do nothing more.” Initially, he offered his “rent-a-person who does nothing” services for free but now he charges 10,000 yen (roughly $96). He has received over 3,000 requests.
The Mainichi Newspaper, January 11, 2021
According to the CDC, the number of people catching the flu this season is down 98%.
Different sports produce wildly different broadcast experiences, however, NFL broadcasts are among the most interrupted and least action-packed broadcasts of any sport. The numbers are startling. An average NFL broadcast lasts well over three hours, yet it delivers a total of only 18 minutes of football action.
FiveThirtyEight, January 31, 2021
" The markets take the stairs up and the elevator down."
Anonymous
Because of the human need for companionship during the pandemic, rescue dogs have become so popular that animal shelters are running out of them.
Washington Post, January 6, 2021
“It is rumored that a sequel is in the works to the 1996 movie, “Independence Day.” I am not sure how scary it will be since an alien invasion would be only like the fifth-worst thing we’re dealing with right now.”
Jimmy Fallon
January 25, 2021
Let’s say you won a billion dollars: If you could lay the $1 bills end-to-end, the trail would measure 96,900 miles, or they would cover 2,555 acres. Stacked, they would measure 67.9 miles high and weigh about 10 tons. Your new-found wealth would be greater than the GDP of the countries Dominica and Tonga combined. Even though you could purchase six F35A fighter jets, you still would not be able to afford to purchase one NFL team.
ABC News, October 22, 2018, and Statista October 1, 2020
From the day Biden was elected until the day he was sworn in as President, the S&P 500 traded up 14.3%. That’s the best performance between Election Day and Inauguration Day in history. Marketwatch, January 20, 2021
The Baltic Dry Index – a composite measure of the rates charged by shipping lines to move dry goods – is up 128% in a year, including a nearly 60% surge just since early December.
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer."
Zora Neale Hurston
Every few years, FINRA issues a five-question test that measures consumers’ knowledge about interest, compounding, inflation, diversification, and bond prices. On the most recent test, only 34% of those who took it got all five questions correct.
For the first time ever, fewer than half of all Americans have trust in traditional media. Trust in social media has hit an all-time low of 27%.
“To make peace, one must be an uncompromising leader. To make peace, one must also embody compromise.”
Benazir Bhutto
January 18, 2021
Last year's S&P 500 earnings are estimated to have fallen by 15% but the index, including dividends, finished up 18.4% in 2020 and set 33 record highs during the year.
Epidemiologists at Emory University in Atlanta believe that raising the minimum wage in the U.S. by $1 would have prevented 27,550 suicides since 1990. A $2 increase would have prevented 57,000.
The Economist, January 20, 2021
Last year, U.S. bankruptcy filings - thanks to unprecedented fiscal and monetary support - hit their lowest level since 1986. However, chapter 11 filings, which are primarily used to reorganize larger businesses, jumped 29%.
There are points in the Pacific Ocean where, if you dug a hole to the opposite point on Earth, you would still be in the Pacific Ocean.
Permaculture Research Institute, May 25, 2017
According to the WSJ, business travel will drop by up to 36% in the post-pandemic world. Bill Gates is even less optimistic. He recently projected business travel would decline by more than 50%. Business travelers only make up 10% of airline passengers across major carriers, but they account for 55%-75% of revenue.
The Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2020
Digital wallets, that store cryptocurrencies, have soared in value but some investors can’t cash in because they forgot their passwords. One programmer in San Francisco has two password guesses left before being locked out, to access a wallet containing 7,002 bitcoin, or $220 million. Newsweek, January 12, 2021
“The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.”
Stephen King
January 11, 2021
Last year, the amount of U.S. currency in circulation soared at a rate unseen since WWII and was the biggest one-year percentage increase since 1945. When all that cash builds up, it tends to look for a place to go, leading to economic boom times.
In November and December of 2020, the S&P 500 rose more than 14%. On the five previous occasions, the index has climbed more than 10% in those two months – 1954, 1962, 1970, 1985, and 1998 – the S&P 500 has gained an average of more than 18% the following year. MarketWatch, January 5, 2021
In 2020, eleven of the top 15 U.S. TV broadcasts were NFL games.
“If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.”
Mark Twain
In 2020 the price of copper was up 26% finishing the year at $7,766 per metric ton. One reason demand’s been insatiable is that the average battery in an electric vehicle contains 83 kilograms of copper compared to 23 kilograms of copper in a typical internal combustion vehicle. Bloomberg Businessweek, January 5, 2021
Last year, California’s population contracted by 69,532, shrinking for the first time as far back as records go.
The Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2021
“May you live in interesting times.”
Chinese curse
December 7, 2020
Amazon strained to meet its two-day delivery window early in the pandemic, but over the course of 2020, Amazon responded to increased demand. It boosted its fleet of cargo ships to 80, added 220 packaging facilities, and hired hundreds of thousands of new employees. One analyst estimated Amazon could capture 42 cents of every dollar spent this holiday season. Marketplace December 4, 2020
Even without further fiscal support, consumers collectively are sitting on more than $1 trillion in "excess savings" over and above pre-Covid levels. The S&P 500 companies have a record $2 trillion in cash, and those with debt have refinanced at rock-bottom rates and extended maturities to record length.
In 1966, Coach Bear Bryant’s undefeated Alabama team only had 19 players who weighed more than 200 pounds. The linemen averaged 194. The quarterback, Ken Stabler weighed 177.
Topeka Capital-Journal, August 7, 2012
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
Isaac Asimov
As recently as 2013, Exxon was the largest company in the world. Today, ExxonMobil is not even in the top 40 most valuable companies in America.
With a view to slashing the impact of industrial livestock production on climate change, as well as providing cleaner, drug-free, and cruelty-free meat, dozens of firms are developing cultivated chicken, beef, and pork. Currently, about 130 million chickens and 4 million pigs are slaughtered every day. By weight, 60% of mammals on earth are livestock, 36% are humans and only 4% are wild.
The Guardian, December 1, 2020
“Progress would be wonderful- if only it would stop.”
Robert Musil
November 30, 2020
Amazon added 427,300 employees between January and October, pushing its workforce to more than 1.2 million people globally. The number of workers at Amazon is now approaching the entire population of Dallas, Texas.
A report by the House Ways & Means Committee shows that Americans pay on average nearly four times more for prescription drugs than 11 economically similar countries. The United States could save $49 billion annually on Medicare Part D alone by pricing drugs similarly to the other countries studied.
Becker's Hospital Review, September 24, 2019
“Vacation is what you take when you can’t take what you've been taking any longer.”
The Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of OZ
Twice the number of Americans have now died from Covid-19 than the number of U.S. service members killed during World War I.
Of the more than 230 people who have died from Covid-19 in Texas jails and correctional facilities, 80% had yet to be convicted of a crime.
Identity fraud – which is what happens when scammers use your personal information to open phony accounts – resulted in $16.9 billion in consumer losses last year.
“Political power does not rest with those who cast votes; political power rests with those who count votes.”
Joseph Stalin
November 23, 2020
Even in the face of the pandemic, financially, most Americans are doing surprisingly well. Americans' disposable income was $15.7 trillion per year in September, up significantly from its pre-crisis level. Average earnings are $29.50 per hour, up from $28.69 in March, and with credit card balances plunging Americans have managed to save 14.3% of their income in September, roughly twice the pre-crisis savings rate.
While humans are shunning flights amid the pandemic, animals are becoming the airline industry’s most reliable frequent fliers. For example, Qatar Airways transports roughly 10 horses and 500 farm animals every day. However, animals can be tricky customers. A planned trip to Johannesburg had to be cancelled after some young giraffes grew too tall for their 10-foot-high crates.
Voters who back a losing presidential candidate can experience as much as a 30% temporary reduction in all-around life satisfaction following the election. That’s a larger drop in happiness than Boston residents experienced following