It is generally accepted that consumers account for approximately 70% of national GDP.  With that in mind, it is important to consider the state of consumer debt.  While it is difficult to access precise data, it appears that Americans have been maxing out their credit cards after years of inflation.  One indicator is the rapid … Continued

Week of September 29, 2025 The Teamsters’ rich contract with UPS drove Amazon, a significant customer, to walk away. Now, UAW’s costly Big Three deal negotiated in 2023 is triggering layoffs. When unions overreach, short-term gains often lead to long-term strain. For investors, expect higher labor costs to accelerate productivity-enhancing automation, benefit non-union competitors, and … Continued

Week of September 22, 2025 Economic outcomes are substantially driven by policies that result from social or cultural priorities. To wit – Obamacare promised affordable, accessible healthcare, yet high premiums and limited networks left many disillusioned. The gap between rhetoric and reality offers a cautionary tale. In New York, Zohran Mamdani’s push for rent control … Continued

Historically, the term settled science has often been used to stifle dissent. By intimidating scientists and others who beg to differ, the proponents of a particular theory create the narrative that theirs is the only explanation and therefore must be true.  Science is rarely, if ever, settled.  Scientific findings rely on a stream of evidence, … Continued

Week of September 15, 2025 The factors of production—land, labor, and capital—drive economic stability. Europe, however, nearly undermined them with poorly designed climate policies. By curtailing traditional energy sources before securing reliable alternatives, it weakened natural resources, raised production costs, and discouraged investment. The result was soaring energy prices and reduced competitiveness, showing how policy … Continued

A tariff is a duty imposed by a national government, customs territory, or supernational union on imports of goods and is paid by the importer but eventually affects the price paid by the consumer. A value-added tax (VAT) is a consumption tax that is levied at each stage of a product’s production and distribution and … Continued

Week of September 8, 2025 The thirty-year U.S. Treasury bond yield dropped by a quarter of a percentage point last week, with mortgage rates following a similar decline. Notably, this occurred without any intervention from the Federal Reserve. Chair Jerome Powell was spared from action. As we have maintained for over three decades, the Fed … Continued

Add to that, too much misinformation, either deliberate or as a result of an agenda or a sloppy job of research.  The public is being besieged by a constant flow of verbiage from a wide range of sources, including such diverse entities as historical media and influencers. All of this places investors in a difficult … Continued

Week of September 1, 2025 There’s an old saying: “Don’t just do something—stand there!” With equity markets brushing new highs in recent days, many are asking whether common stocks are overvalued. Over the long term, however, equity markets have proven highly efficient at forecasting future profitability. While short-term price corrections are to be expected, we … Continued

We have previously discussed California legislative efforts to increase the minimum wage for fast-food workers.  Note blogs posted May 3, 2023 and October 18, 2023.  Now the Los Angeles City Council has voted to mandate minimum wage increases for workers in hotels, with more than 60 rooms, to $30.00 per hour by 2028.  Not to … Continued

Week of August 25, 2025 The Trump administration has announced plans to take a 10% stake in Intel. Perhaps, then, Nvidia should begin preparing its negotiation strategy with the U.S. government now, while it is still in a position of strength—so that when its turn inevitably comes, it can secure “better” terms than Intel. The … Continued

Week of August 18, 2025 In many ways, our Sigma Signals project can be viewed as a distant cousin of Nate Silver’s 2012 book The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—but Some Don’t. Last week provided a textbook case of what we would classify as noise: plenty of headlines but little meaningful … Continued