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During
the Great Depression, farm subsidies were created to keep the family farm
afloat and ensure a stable national food supply. Today, these subsidies have
grown so lucrative that wealthy investors, large corporations, and farm-estate
heirs use taxpayer money to maximize their personal return on investment. Since
2008, however, the top 10 farm subsidy recipients each received an average of
$18.2 million – that’s $1.8 million annually, $150,000 per month, or $35,000 a
week. With the median household income of $60,000 a year, these farmers
received more than 30 times the average yearly income of U.S. families. It was
never the intent of Congress to create a new class of millionaires through
federal farm subsidies. Yet, the subsidies continue to flow. [more...]
As of today, job gains
exceed job losses by a 20:1 ratio. This week we’re showing gains of 11,100 jobs
in four major sectors affected by tariffs. Tariffs are creating far more jobs
than they are sacrificing. The tariffs are working. So far, we have
identified 514 job losses specifically due to tariffs. All job gains and job
losses refer to job changes that have either happened or have been publicly
announced as planned to happen by the companies involved, with specific numbers
included. We have not estimated any of these numbers; they all come from the
companies concerned. We do not include threats of potential job losses, such as
the threat of sacrificing an alleged 4,000 future jobs recently made by the CEO
of Chinese-owned Volvo Cars. Many corporate leaders are making vague threats or
forecasts with clear political motivations. We are going deeper and looking at
facts and facts only. [more...]
2018
has been a great year thus far for M&A. The number of deals is down, but
the deal sizes are increasing. Record-breaking deals are being proposed and
executed both in the United States and globally. Just in the last week, Sprint
and T-Mobile announced a $26 billion merger, and Marathon Petroleum announced a
$36 billion acquisition. Other potential deals include Walmart and J Sainsbury,
Walmart (or Amazon) and Flipkart, and Bayer and Monsanto. To provide a better
idea, as of mid-last week, there have been 11,828 deals valued at $1.71
trillion globally. Deals are valued to be 63% larger on average than last year.
[more...]
The
two American giants’ fight for Indian territory has started to intensify.
Amazon and Walmart have been competing to acquire majority stake in India’s
largest e-commerce company, Flipkart. Recent developments suggest Walmart has
proposed a $10-12 billion offer for a 51% stake; the deal could close by the
end of June. On the other hand, Amazon has marked its presence by attaching a
breakup fee of up to $2 billion. A breakup fee is a penalty established in the
deal process that requires payment if the purchaser or seller backs out. In
this case, Amazon will pay a hefty fee if the deal is incomplete for whatever
reason. Nonetheless, the deal structures emphasize the seriousness of both
parties. [more...]
In the Great Class War between the “rich” and the
government, whose side are you on? This week MarketWatch reported that
by 2030, “the richest 1%” are on track to “control nearly 66% of the world’s
money.” This is approximately $305 trillion, it reported, based on data from
the hard-left British newspaper The Guardian, best-selling French
Marxist economist Thomas Piketty, and other sources with comradely views. The
activist group Oxfam warns that “just eight billionaires have as much wealth as
3.6 billion people – the poorest half of the world.” [more...]
I’m
no proponent of runaway government spending and the headlong rush into national
insolvency. But, if the government is going to do it anyway, we as citizens
should get to hold onto every last red cent, regardless what it might
eventually be worth. And, who knows, perhaps the added attention to the deficit
will help the Congress to return to fiscal sanity. It’s doubtful, but we always hope for change we can all
believe in. Like clockwork, President Trump raised the prospect of
more tax cuts during the Republican Congressional Retreat. He recently
delivered, promising Phase 2. [more...]
The
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the employment report for February
2018. It surpassed and surprised analysts’ estimates by adding 313,000 jobs.
The unemployment rate remained at 4.1% for the fifth consecutive month, the
lowest rate in 17 years. Analysts had expected that the U.S. had added about
200,000 jobs and that the pool of potential workers has been depleting. These
new figures suggest otherwise; the last time the U.S. experienced large gains
with low unemployment was during the economic boom of the 1990s. The U.S. has
added over 500,000 new jobs since the start of 2018, and the labor force
participation rate has increased as well - its best one month gain in over 8
years. [more...]
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